On the occasion of the 2023 Suzuka Grand Prix, Lando Norris congratulates Oscar Piastri on his renewal at McLaren and makes some statements.
Norris, among his statements at Suzuka, praised Piastri
Norris's statements in the Suzuka press conference begin like this:
"Congratulations to him. I think any contract that allows you to stay in Formula 1 longer is a fantastic thing. He behaved well, he did everything he was supposed to do. He probably exceeded most people's expectations for what he was able to do this season. [...] He pushed me a lot and that's not a good thing. Not what I want, but he did a great job. So, congratulations to him for more years. We had a fun first half of the season and made a lot of progress. I think for him, to be part of this progress and hopefully continue to do so next year, in 2025 and 2026, will be something really exciting."
The strength of McLaren
Norris's statements at Suzuka continue:
How strong is your car? You have made some updates in Singapore. Do you think that can also translate into an improvement here?
“It's hard to say, I don't know at the moment. However I want to believe that. I believeeverything reacted as we expected and we have certainly made a good step forward. We don't have the confidence to say that we are as fast as Red Bull. PRed Bull will probably dominate this weekend. However, compared to Ferrari and Mercedes, Mercedes has always been much more consistent than us. We are still very up and down over a weekend. We manage to be very strong, maybe even a little ahead, as we saw at Silverstone. But overall the Mercedesit was probably there second best car over the course of the season. Then the Ferrari and then us, right now. But we're getting there... [Suzuka] is a very different circuit to Singapore and we have to find out a lot of things and analyze the data regarding the updates.”
You said that Red Bull will dominate again. How certain can you be about this?
"Well, that's more or less a guarantee.... "
