Piastri ‘mentally stronger’ than Norris – Red Bull’s Marko

Jul.29 (GMM) McLaren CEO Zak Brown admits the team may need to re-think its strict policy of total driver equality over the looming August break.

Over the past several races, as the earlier-dominant Red Bull’s dominance faded, McLaren and Lando Norris emerged as Max Verstappen’s biggest threat for world championship spoils in 2024.

Spa-Francorchamps, however, was a more difficult outing for McLaren, and despite starting P11 on Sunday, Verstappen actually managed to extend his points gap over Norris.

“I personally didn’t expect to be able to keep Lando behind me,” the Dutchman told Sky Deutschland.

But Red Bull’s Dr Helmut Marko was disappointed that Verstappen couldn’t make better progress than P5 at the flag – boosted to P4 with George Russell’s disqualification.

“We were surprised in a negative way,” he told Servus TV. “It turned out that overtaking was just as difficult as in Hungary, even though the straights are much longer here. It’s incomprehensible with these cars that the DRS zone was shortened.

“You almost have to put all your focus on qualifying now,” Marko added. “If you want to mention something positive, it is that we still gained two points on Lando Norris. But the only real overtaking action was that of Oscar Piastri on (Charles) Leclerc.”

Piastri, 23, has generally lagged slightly behind Norris so far in 2024, but the Australian won in Hungary and was then promoted to P2 in the Belgian GP classification given Russell’s DSQ.

Norris, meanwhile, was left to lament more personal driving errors.

“If you want to catch up with Max, there’s obviously a lot of pressure,” McLaren CEO Brown told Sky Deutschland. “We know that Lando is quite self critical.

“He will be a bit grumpy about this mistake, but overall he makes few mistakes and has a lot of good moments.”

In Hungary, McLaren famously allowed Piastri to re-pass Norris for the win in the interest of driver equality, but given the team’s comparative struggle at Spa, Brown admits that policy might need a re-think.

“Yes, we’ll talk about it. We have two number 1s,” the American said. “We will give them equal opportunities. But if in the future, if it’s the case that Oscar could support Lando without compromising his own race, we’ll have a look.

“We’ll look from race to race and make sure that both guys still have the chance to win.”

In points, Norris is Verstappen’s closest challenger – 78 points behind. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc comes next, followed by Piastri – with the Australian’s point deficit to Norris at 32.

“It looks very much like Piastri is the mentally stronger one and is gradually catching up with Lando over the course of this season and is even better in some areas,” Marko said. “I didn’t see any mistakes from him.

“Let’s see how the decision (in Hungary) plays out.”

For Verstappen, the good news is that while McLaren has closed the gap, so too has Mercedes – with Ferrari not far behind. “It’s positive that McLaren wins one time and Mercedes the next,” the triple world champion said after Spa.

“Then they can take points from each other, which I definitely need for the rest of the season. In the drivers’ (championship), it may look like a big gap, but just one mistake or a retirement and we’ll be a lot closer together.”

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