Norris did “what you should do” at turn one – Verstappen

Max Verstappen said Lando Norris’s aggressive start to the Las Vegas Grand Prix was justified even though he ended up losing the lead of the race.

Norris made a firm move at the start of Saturday’s grand prix to protect his lead from Verstappen, who started alongside him on the front row. However he then braked too late for the first corner, ran wide, and lost the lead to Verstappen anyway.

Verstappen said he understood how Norris made the mistake given how little grip there was on the inside.

“That’s what you should do, to cover off the inside, but I think it’s very easy to get caught out with where you have to brake,” he said.

“Normally in the start, you leave the grid and then you look in the mirror. But here, it’s almost like you don’t have a lot of time to look in the mirror because you immediately have to brake again. And it’s quite slippery anyway, so I guess that’s what happened.”

Norris’s error put Verstappen into a lead that he never lost. He said being free of the slipstream of other cars helped him judge how hard he could push his tyres, which was important due to the limited dry running drivers had prior to the race.

“It helped, of course, to get into the lead in turn one,” said Verstappen. “I do think in the first stint we were all finding our feet a bit with how much to push or not, how much we had to manage, because I do think we were all quite close up until the pit stops.

“So we were just trying to get a good balance, because we didn’t really get to have a good understanding on Thursday. It felt better than expected, I would say, already, on that compound. And then, when we got onto the hard compound, because we did quite a decent first stint it made the second stint a little bit easier. But even there, you also have to make sure that you don’t overcook it with the tyre.”

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