Red Bull “not maximising results when they a quick car”

Lando Norris believes Red Bull’s recent slump in form is partly due to the team failing to get the most out of its car.

He has out-scored championship leader Max Verstappen in four of the last five rounds, trimming his lead from 84 points to 59. McLaren overtook Red Bull for the lead of the constructors’ championship last weekend.

However Norris believes some people are “dismissing Red Bull too quickly” as four teams have emerged as potential race-winners this year.

“Checo [Perez] was very quick last weekend,” he told Sky. “Maybe, if not, one of the quickest cars the whole weekend, including the race.

“So I think they’re not maximising their results even when they do have quite a quick car, which was last weekend.”

Perez was on course to finish between the two McLarens in Baku until he retired in a collision with Carlos Sainz Jnr on the penultimate lap. Both McLaren drivers therefore finished in front of the sole remaining Red Bull of Verstappen.

“We’re in with a good fight [with] Ferrari and Mercedes at the same time. I think Mercedes were very quick. Ferrari seem like more consistently the top team at the minute, apart from us. So it’s exciting, it’s a close battle.

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“But I don’t think anyone should dismiss Red Bull. I think they were still probably quicker than us last weekend when you look at things. It means we still have to work hard, we have to improve. But consistently we are out-scoring them and that’s why we have to accept maybe not a perfect weekend sometimes, but maximise those weekends when we can get everything right.”

Norris’ team mate Oscar Piastri won the race but Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc comfortably beat him to pole position. Norris said McLaren did not have the quickest car out of their rivals in Baku despite climbing 13 places to finish fourth ahead of Verstappen.

“We know we’re closely matched on pace with the other teams, but there’s going to be – like the last few years and probably forever in Formula 1 – some tracks suit you a bit more, some tracks not so much.

“Oscar still won the race without the quickest car so it’s possible. I still finished fourth and we had a very good day.

“We know we know we still have to improve, we still have things to work on. There’s certain areas where Ferrari are very quick, there’s certain times and areas where Red Bull are quick and the same with Mercedes. So everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.

“We still have weaknesses and we just need to make them maybe not quite as tough to battle with sometimes. But we have a lot of competition and four very strong teams so it’s tough at the minute.”

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