Norris played a major role in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring when he beat Sergio Perez to fourth place and eventually inherited third place on the grid after Bottas’ starting penalty.
The McLaren driver stayed third at the start and kept his two faster rivals in check until lap 9, when Norris Perez let pass at Turn 3.
Bottas overtook him a lap later when Norris sat in fifth place.
Despite qualifying within a tenth of the Mercedes pair’s, Norris showed on race day at the Red Bull Ring that McLaren still has a lot of work to do.
“Yeah, that’s it. It’s a bit of fun knowing that I’m in a worse car and I’m ahead of them,” said Norris. “It’s also cool to see how much faster they are today, which proves how much better their car is. But on a day like yesterday I out-qualified one of them, so we do a good job in qualifying at times.
On the subject of matching items
“Maybe not with Paul Ricard, but we’re going to get everything we can on Saturday, and we did that yesterday. But days like today also show how much we still have to improve and make the car better and so on. We have a lot to do.”
Norris admitted that a tougher fight would have compromised him in his battle with Carlos Sainz for fifth place.
On the subject of matching items
“It’s never nice to do that because you don’t want to give up a position,” said Norris. “We did our homework. I already knew yesterday who I was going to play against. It’s pretty easy and relapsing or I could try to see what our pace was like and how long I could hold it back and it gives me a good distance from the guys behind.
“But I also have to make the decision if it starts to harm my own race. If I had done it too long, I would have been much more vulnerable to Carlos at the end of the race. “
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