Red Bull identify Norris as the threat to Verstappen

Lando Norris has “emerged from the pack” as the most “consistent challenger” to Max Verstappen with Red Bull expecting the McLaren driver to remain a big threat to them at their home Austrian GP this weekend.Verstappen and Norris have finished in the top two positions at five of the past six grands prix.Although the reigning champion has won five of those races to Norris' one, the McLaren driver finished on the Red Bull driver's tail at Imola, Montreal and, last Sunday, Barcelona to suggest he could still yet prove a genuine title threat to Verstappen over the 14 races that remain in the record-length 2024 season. Norris' latest runner-up finish in Spain moved him ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc into a career-best second place in the Drivers' Championship, with the 24-year-old trailing Verstappen by 69 points. And reflecting on his driver's narrow two-second victory over Norris at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said: "If Lando would have had track position it would have been difficult to beat them. Trending "It was so close between the two of them and they were 18 seconds ahead of the rest. "I would say that Lando has emerged from the pack as the most consistent challenger."Speaking to Sky Sports News, Horner added: "We've had four pole winners in the last four races. It's very, very tight."But Lando I would say, he seems to have worked out these tyres, McLaren have done a great job as well, and they're going to push us hard for the rest of the year." Monterosa This content is provided by Monterosa, which may be using cookies and other technologies. To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies. You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Monterosa cookies or to allow those cookies just once. You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Monterosa cookies. To view this content you can use the button below to allow Monterosa cookies for this session only. Enable Cookies Allow Cookies Once Norris, who won his maiden grand prix at the start of May at the Miami GP, has now finished second 10 times in races - nine times as runner-up to Verstappen - since McLaren introduced their transformative car upgrade at last year's Austrian GP.A lap of the Red Bull Ring takes little over 60 seconds to complete and Horner said ahead of this weekend's Sprint event: "On such a short lap, it's going to be so tight and we expect McLaren and Lando to be fast again."Ferrari and Mercedes? Who knows. If you look at the gap to those guys after the race it was pretty similar to last year. The one who has stepped up is Lando." Indeed, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff - whose improving team finished third and fourth at Barcelona ahead of the Ferraris - acknowledged that Red Bull and McLaren currently are a step ahead of the field."The McLaren was very quick [in Spain]. How quick, I don't know, I think Max always has a little bit in the pocket and you see that makes that difference," said Wolff."But definitely there's not a lot at the moment between these two and they are definitely setting the benchmark." Is Norris a genuine title threat to Verstappen?Although Norris' championship deficit to Verstappen has grown by 13 points in the last two races despite McLaren having chances to win both - with the Dutchman now enjoying a season-high lead at the top of the standings of those 69 points - that could yet change quickly if the McLaren driver is able to convert his car's ever-growing pace into a run of wins given how many points remain up for grabs this season (396).This weekend's Sprint event in Austria alone, which features a 100km race on the Saturday in addition Sunday's main grand prix, offers an additional eight points compared with the majority of events. Asked about his title chances after Spain, Norris said: "We should have got some points back on Max. Potentially, there was a chance to beat him in Canada. So two races that I finished second and he's won"But Max needs to stop winning in order to achieve that. Yeah, even though I moved into second in the championship, that doesn't matter. I couldn't care if I was second or 10th."It's more about the gap to what Max is and he's still extending it at the minute and that's something we can't afford to do or can't afford to kind of let him run away with it at this point of the season."But we can do. You know, if I just made some better decisions in Canada and if I had a better start [on Sunday], we could have won two races. And I know there's a lot of, and there kind of always has been a lot of 'shoulda, woulda, couldas', but we have what it takes. It's just about putting it all together."'Red Bull know where to improve'Norris won a thrilling qualifying duel with Verstappe