Red Bull cautious about McLaren’s in-form Lando Norris ahead of home Austrian race

SPIELBERG – Red Bull will be wary of McLaren’s Lando Norris at a home Austrian Grand Prix that Max Verstappen has dominated in the past, but this time looks a tight battle between the two drivers.

The 11th round of the Formula One season is a sprint weekend, for the third time this campaign, with a 100km race at Spielberg’s Red Bull Ring on June 29 before the main event a day later.

Red Bull’s three-time world champion Verstappen, cheered on by his orange army of travelling Dutch fans, will hope to stretch the 69-point lead he enjoys over closest challenger Norris in the papaya-liveried McLaren.

The latter has a point to make after taking pole in Spain on June 22 but finishing second. He was also runner-up in Canada – both races the 24-year-old Norris felt he should have won.

Spielberg is the shortest lap, in terms of time, on the calendar, with Verstappen taking pole last season in just over 64 seconds. He also went on to win the race.

“On such a short lap it’s going to be so tight,” said Red Bull principal Christian Horner.

“We expect McLaren and Lando to be fast again. Ferrari, Mercedes, who knows? If you look at the gap to those guys after the (Spanish Grand Prix) race it was pretty similar to last year. The one who’s stepped up is Lando.

“We’re having to fight really hard for the wins at the moment and we’re having to be on the top of our game as a team. But that’s Formula One, that’s as it should be.”

Verstappen, 26, is looking ahead to a “hectic and busy weekend”.

He said: “It is another sprint race this weekend. It is really important to nail the set-up of the car straightaway and analyse how best we build and improve on our previous races, especially as qualifying is always close here.

“The track lends itself to a lot of overtaking so I’m sure it will be an exciting race.”

Winner in Miami in May, Norris was also runner-up in Imola and China while the 2023 Austrian race won by Verstappen, for the fourth time in six years, was where McLaren brought breakthrough upgrades.

The Briton has now finished first once, second 10 times and third twice in 23 races. He was 2.2 seconds behind Verstappen in Barcelona and 3.8sec adrift in Canada. The gap at Imola was 0.7sec and he beat the Dutch driver by 7.6sec in Miami.

“We’re on a good roll. We’re doing well... I need to just tidy up a few little bits and we’ll be on top,” Norris said. “I’m confident. Every weekend we go into now, the car’s performing extremely well. We’re always there or thereabouts within a couple of tenths of pole.”

Verstappen and Norris’ teammates, Sergio Perez and Oscar Piastri respectively, will be hoping to get in on the act after disappointing results in Spain – the Mexican only eighth and Australian seventh.

Mercedes and Ferrari should be in the mix, with seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton taking his first podium of the season with Mercedes in Spain and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz holding the race lap record at the Red Bull Ring, albeit from 2020.

“It is a very different circuit to last weekend,” cautioned Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. “There is plenty of low to mid-speed content, punctuated by some longer straights. That will provide another challenge and reference point for our car.”

The chaos of last season, with the results revised five hours after the end following a flurry of penalties to nearly half the field for exceeding track limits, should no longer be a concern with a strip of gravel added to Turns 9 and 10. REUTERS