Qatar Grand Prix: Lando Norris ‘relaxed’ before maiden Formula 1 title bid

Lando Norris says he is «relaxed» heading into the Qatar Grand Prix, the race in which he could become world champion for the first time.

The McLaren driver heads team-mate Oscar Piastri and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 24 points.

The Briton will become champion on Sunday if he can score two more points than both his rivals over the course of this weekend in Doha.

Norris said: «I feel as relaxed as I was before when I was 35 points behind the lead and I feel the same when I’m 24 points ahead. That’s my strength for now.»

Norris has turned the tables on Piastri with a strong run of form since the Australian won the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August, switching what had been a 34-point deficit on the Australian into his current lead.

At the same time, Verstappen has mounted an impressive fightback from being 104 points off the lead after the Dutch Grand Prix, the race before Italy.

Norris said: «How I am now feels the same as before Mexico when I wasn’t leading. It feels the same as Austin when I still felt good in the car, but Max still won the race.

«I really don’t feel any different in the car from before I was leading to now when I’m leading.»

Piastri has not won a race since Zandvoort at the end of August. Since then, Verstappen has won four and Norris two.

Both McLaren drivers suffered a blow when they were disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix last weekend after the skid blocks on their cars were found to have worn too much.

Without that, Norris would have been coming into Qatar with a 30-point lead over Piastri, but the 26-year-old said it had not been hard to get over the disappointment of losing second place in Vegas.

«Of course it hurts,» he said. «There’s a lot of effort that goes into every weekend from everyone, including myself. All that effort just felt like it disappeared very quickly.

«But it’s the same feeling for all of us. The mechanics, the engineers, myself, everyone in McLaren, feels let down by what we had as a result. And we’re all disappointed.

«But actually I found it quite easy just to move on and have a few days off and come to this weekend. Yeah, disappointed, of course. But I was fine otherwise.»

Norris said the team would try to treat this race the same as any other.

«We treat it very normally,» he said. «There’s no point trying to treat it any differently because we’ve been doing a good job and I’m very happy with the job we’ve all been doing.

«We know what areas we need to do better, we know what things we need to improve on this year, all the standard stuff. I really try and not treat it any differently because there’s no point. Nothing needs to be treated any differently.»

Piastri acknowledged that the gap was big enough that he would need fortune to go his way.

«There’s still a chance,» he said, «and it’s played out that way a couple of times before. So, I know it’s not impossible.

«Obviously, I also know that it’s a bit of an outside shot. Even if I have a perfect final two weekends, I can’t just rely on that. I need other things to go my way and I’m very aware of that.

«So, I’m just going to try and have the best weekends I can, which I try and do every weekend and see what happens to everyone else basically.»

Piastri has struggled for pace in a number of recent races but said he was confident he would be strong in Qatar.

«Confident, I would say,» he said. «It’s a circuit that I’ve enjoyed – I’ve done well at it in the past.

«Vegas was looking reasonable from a pace point of view, just qualifying the end of Q3 didn’t go how I wanted and then the race – obviously the race was what it was and a few mistakes in there, but the pace when I had clean air to be able to use my pace was pretty good.

«So I think we’ve already found a lot of improvements in those kind of [low-grip] conditions, but obviously here is a much different circuit, much higher speed, very grippy Tarmac, pretty consistent, maybe some wind around, but pretty consistent temperatures at least. So, yeah, hopefully it can be good.»

Verstappen’s news conference is scheduled for later on Thursday.