Lando Norris scoffed at Red Bull’s concerns about their long-run pace at the Suzuka circuit as they have not had “bad” race pace in “four or five” years.
Max Verstappen has secured the pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, with Sergio Perez and Norris following closely behind. In qualifying, Norris was three-tenths of a second slower than Verstappen.
‘I don’t think they’ve had a bad race in the last, four or five years
But it’s the team’s long-run pace that is worrying Red Bull ahead of the race.
“So far I haven’t been happy with my long runs,” said pole-sitter Verstappen.
The speed was not up to my expectations. Therefore, there is some uncertainty heading into the race as Ferrari seemed quite at ease during the long runs.
They may not have been as speedy in a single lap, but their performance in the long runs was impressive. We will need to observe how this plays out during the race.
McLaren is also pretty good. I’m feeling a bit disappointed with my long run, so everyone else seems a bit stronger.
Perez also mentioned that he doesn’t believe we are performing well in terms of long-run pace, but Norris has dismissed their worries.
The McLaren driver expressed his thoughts on their race pace, stating that despite their complaints, he believes they have not had a poor race in the past four or five years. Therefore, he remains optimistic about their performance and expects them to do well.
Nonetheless, he also hopes to challenge the Red Bulls on Sunday.
Last year, I was clearly right beside Max as we entered Turn 1. I’m really hoping to recreate that moment. However, it’s quite challenging because they are really fast,” he mentioned.
When asked if he believed that Sunday’s race presented his greatest opportunity to surpass at least one of the Red Bull drivers, he confidently responded, “Absolutely! It’s incredibly tricky…”
Sergio is performing admirably, making it significantly more challenging to keep pace with his car. However, we demonstrated last year that even when we were at a greater distance from them, we could still remain competitive and not fall too far behind. Therefore, that will be our objective once again.
Nevertheless, I believe it is important to be realistic, and currently, we are still too distant to pose a serious challenge to them. They possess a level of speed that surpasses ours.
We may have the edge in qualy, but usually our competitors tend to pull ahead during the race. That’s why I like to keep things realistic.
I believe our main competition is with the drivers behind us. I’ll give it my all to move up the grid.
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