Lando Norris does not ‘really care’ if critics say he missed title opportunity

Lando Norris said he does not “care” if others believe if he has let a golden chance to move closer to the title slip through his fingers.

Team-mate and championship leader Oscar Piastri crashing out in Lap 1 represented a perfect opportunity for Norris to cut into the gap but the six points earned for his P2 decision has made a minimal impact.

Lando Norris hits back at critics over missed opportunities

An uncharacteristically mistake-filled weekend from Piastri gave Norris a chance to reverse momentum in a title race that has been slipping away from him but the Briton leaves Azerbaijan with one eye over his shoulder as much as he has one looking ahead.

Max Verstappen’s second consecutive win pulls the Dutchman to within 69 points of Piastri and 44 of Norris but the latter said he does not “really care” if others say he is missing opportunities.

“I’m doing the best I can in every race,” he said. “If you look at it like that, every race I finished second or worse this year was an opportunity lost. So I don’t really care how people look at it. I

“Of course, I wanted to do better today. I needed to do better yesterday, but we went out first [in qualifying]. This was just our decision, and we paid the price for that.

“I also could have ended up in the wall and gone long and something worse happened. So I feel like I was close to maximising today. Maybe it didn’t look like it from the outside, but we struggled with the pace. We weren’t too optimistic about our race pace today.

“Clearly, we struggled a little bit. I don’t think the pace is bad, it’s just too difficult to overtake.

“I’m doing the best I can. I know I still have a lot of points to make up against a pretty good driver, an incredible driver, so I just need to keep my head up.”

More reaction from the race in Baku

👉 Oscar Piastri wary of Verstappen title challenge after ‘messy’ Baku weekend

👉 How Max Verstappen makes the impossible seem possible after Baku win

Norris also said people should stop being “so surprised” if Verstappen wins races, saying Red Bull have been competitive throughout the year.

“I think people need to stop being so surprised that they’re quick,” Norris said. “Max was winning races already at the beginning of the year. He could have won round one [Australia]. I think he was pretty close to winning round two [China].

“The whole season they’ve been quick. The Red Bull has been good. They brought some upgrades to Monza so not a surprise, I think we know that they’re an incredibly strong team and one of the best drivers ever in Formula 1, so we expect nothing less. They’re going to make our life difficult for the rest of the season.

“But we also know from our side, we struggled a bit here. Monza, clearly, we’re not quick enough.

“We’ve made improvements, but things where the Red Bull have been so good and dominant in the past, they still have and we don’t.

“And today, when I was following the Red Bull, there were clearly some areas where they were just another level to us.”

Read next: Lewis Hamilton at centre of Ferrari team orders in untelevised Baku GP radio call