Norris hints at Perez: 'Some teams have one good driver and one lesser one'

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Norris hints at Red Bull and Perez after ruling on competitive McLaren
24 May at 09:48
Last update 24 May at 09:52
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  • Cas van de Kleut

With Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, McLaren has two strong drivers. The Briton is often still ahead, but his teammate is regularly close. However, this is not the case with every team, as Norris noticed.

At Red Bull Racing, the gap is a bit bigger between Max Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez. This was again evident in Imola, when the Mexican did not progress beyond Q2 while his teammate was on pole position.

This happens more often than just in Imola. Last year, for instance, Verstappen took pole position five times in a row, while Perez failed to qualify for Q3 in those five races in a row. The difference is also smaller at times, but also often enough not.

Is Norris lashing out at Perez here?

At McLaren, this is not the case. Norris tells GPblog and others: "I think we, along with Ferrari, are the team where we have two competitive drivers during every session. I think if you look at a lot of the grid, they don't have that."

The one-time race winner says: "They have someone who puts down a mega lap and then drives a good race, but they also have someone who doesn't drive as well. So I think that's one of our strengths, that we always have two competitive cars and we can compete well with Ferrari at the moment. If we continue that way, we can definitely compete."

This article was written in collaboration with Ben Stevens