Norris flirted with a title battle with Verstappen last season but ultimately fell short. The advantage the Red Bull driver built up in a dominant first five races was too big to close.
The 25-year-old Briton said: “I learned a lot of things last year. I clearly wasn’t quite ready to deliver on everything that we needed to deliver on from a racing point of view.
“That’s just because racing against Max is a unique situation and you don’t get to experience it in any other way of life until you really get to that point.
“Had it been a battle against different drivers, I don’t know if it would have been the same. It definitely probably wouldn’t have been as hard.
“That’s probably a fair assessment because I do think Max will be the hardest guy to race against. He’s always going to be the one who’s going to be most willing to push the limits and push the boundaries like he did. So I learned that aspect of Max.
“And I learned where I stood in that situation, which was not at the right level. And I learned from those things. And I think already into the last couple of races, I improved on a lot of those situations.”
Norris said he believed he was in a better position this year to fight strongly all season.
“I’m just excited to have another crack at it and see what I can do and go up against any driver,” he said.
“I don’t think I’m just going to be racing against Max this year. I think it’s going to be Charles [Leclerc], Lewis [Hamilton]. It’s going to be Oscar [Piastri, Norris’ McLaren team-mate].
“It’s going to be the Red Bull drivers and the Mercedes drivers too. So, I’m looking forward to all of the battles. And of course, the more about the others, the more wars there can be on track between others, the better for us.”
Verstappen, who is aiming to win a fifth consecutive drivers’ title, said he was concerned by the pace McLaren had shown in testing.
“I know we are not the quickest at the moment,” the Dutchman, 27, said. “But it is a very long season, a lot of things can change quite quickly.
“We are pretty happy with how our test went. It will be an interesting weekend for sure, we are expecting to be up at the front, whether that is right at the pointy end we will see.”
Source link : https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/articles/cn4827801xeo
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Publish date : 2025-03-13 07:40:06
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