Lando Norris pushed Imola winner Max Verstappen to the very end, setting up a thrilling finish and putting the F1 world champion on high alert.
Verstappen's final victory margin of 0.7 seconds over Norris at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix was a world away from any of the four easy wins he had claimed this year and a sizeable chunk of his record 19 victories in 2023.He wasn't wrong. Norris, fresh off the heels of an overdue first F1 win in Miami two weeks earlier, catapulted himself into victory contention with a thrilling charge late on, which fell agonisingly short of making it two in a row.
"Well Stefano has been asking us for weeks to try and make it closer at the end," Red Bull boss Christian Horner would joke later that evening.Two were on Verstappen's side. The Dutchman's three track limits transgressions represented an anomaly at a circuit where gravel lines the outside of most corners -- the FIA still enforces track limits in places to ensure consistency.
This lack of grip, coupled with the fact that Verstappen was also driving carefully to avoid a penalty, put him into a supremely defensive position. And exactly as the Red Bull driver's tyres were getting away from him, Norris' were coming alive. That was not by some fluke, either. For the second race in a row, we were shown a glimpse of Norris' supreme race craft.
"I had to just manage things as best I could," Norris said about the laps in which he was monitoring the red car behind him."And when I say I'm pushing, it doesn't mean you're 110%. Pushing can still be 90%. You're just pushing to the limit of what you want to do. But I basically changed all my switches on the steering wheel to try and help the rear tyres and try to kill the fronts, because I just had too much front at that point.
"So yeah, I could see him, of course, catch up. I was not sure if I could keep him behind, but I was just trying to do the best I could, pushing as hard as I could with the grip that I had. And yeah, luckily, it was just enough laps."Verstappen, to his credit, managed to keep his car out of the grandstands and did exactly what he needed to do to win the race.
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