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Lando Norris has rejected the suggestion that he needs to be more aggressive when racing wheel-to-wheel with Max Verstappen – and he says he doesn’t have to change his approach.

However the McLaren Formula 1 driver acknowledged that there are “little things” that he can do better as he attempts to beat the Dutchman to the 2024 title.

The battle for third between the pair in Austin last weekend has generated a lot of comment, with some suggesting that Norris could have done a better job.

Norris received a five-second penalty that McLaren is now contesting via a request for a right of review.

“It’s not an easy answer,” said Norris when asked if he should be more aggressive. “Honestly, it’s not as simple as just saying ‘yes.’ Do I need to make some changes? Yes, and still adapt a little bit more. But is everything I’m doing wrong? Also a no. So it’s a tough position to be in.

“Because like we saw, Max didn’t care if he won or second or third. His only job was to beat me, and he did that. So he did a good job from that side, and I had a lot of fun, and I respected our battle that we had.

“But yeah, he still ended up on top, and I need to be beating him. Some little things I need to change, but I don’t need to change my whole approach.”

Expanding on the theme he said: “He did what I guess he thought was right. I did what I thought was right. I still disagree, and I think as a team, we still disagree. I think the majority of people who were watching disagreed with the penalty that I got.

“But I’ll make the changes that I need to make, whether it’s being more aggressive at times, or less aggressive, or whatever, I’ll do what I think is right.”

He added: “I think the point if he only stayed ahead of me at the apex because he went off the track. He wouldn’t have been ahead at the apex if you braked where he should have braked, and stayed on the track. So I think that’s the most obvious point.”

Norris acknowledged that it’s not easy to wheel-to-wheel with Verstappen, but insisted that equally he’s

“Clearly Max is very good at what he does, and is probably the best in the world at what he does,” he said. “So when I’m going up against the best in the world, it’s not going to be an easy thing to do, and he’s been racing in this position for longer than I have. I’m definitely not doing a perfect job, but I’m not doing a bad job.

“I’m still staying there, I’m avoiding collisions, which a lot of things that we’ve done could have easily been and turned into worse things, like bigger crashes and stuff. And I avoided them and stayed in races which easily could have ended earlier than they have.”

Continuing with the driving guidelines theme he said: “I think there’s certain things I don’t agree with, but I still want to be racing. I don’t want there to be rules for absolutely everything.

“I just believe the slight way of how I got a penalty last weekend, and the consequence of how that happened, I didn’t agree with, and that’s the only thing I think that needs to be changed.

“But it’s clear what his intentions are. It’s a difficult route for me to get around, getting caught up in collisions, and things like Turn 1 easily could have been, or Turn 12 easily could have been. So he’s in a much more powerful position than I am. It’s up to me and team to try and overcome him.”

RBR boss Christian Horner said in Austin that he was surprised that Norris hadn’t given the place back and then used his superior pace to re-pass Verstappen.

When asked by this writer if the team could change its approach and perhaps react differently in such situations – taking the cautious route of assuming that there will be a penalty, handing the place back and then trying to pass again – Norris disagreed.

“It’s too easy for people to say this,” he said. “My tyres were getting hotter and hotter, and getting away for me more and more. My pace difference to Max was decreasing. So if I let him back past there probably might not have been a chance to get past him again.

“But just hindsight, and people’s opinions on the outside, is very simple thing. So I don’t agree with a lot of people, and what they said. That might have been my only chance. Who knows? I know best. I’m in that position.

“So I’ll give my opinion. Sometimes I’ll be right, sometimes it’s wrong. I don’t mind if people disagree with my opinion, but I’m always just trying to do what I think is best at the time, and within the rules that I believe is correct, and those kinds of things, and sometimes it’s difficult.

“Hence, I asked the team, what do you guys think? Ideally the stewards would come on and say, we don’t think this was right, give the position back. That would have been a much simpler thing to do.

“But that’s not how it works. I believed I was in the right. I’ve asked the team for confirmation. They believed that we were in the right, and therefore I’ve continued.

“So no, I think we’re doing a good job as a team. I think our approach is correct, but sometimes you just don’t come out on top.”

Max Verstappen has joked that he needs to have “the book in the car” in order to keep track of the FIA Formula 1 driving guidelines.

Those guidelines and the raft of penalties awarded over the US GP weekend were the main talking point in Mexico on Thursday, with the incident involving Verstappen and Lando Norris generating different opinions from drivers.

Norris received a five-second penalty for going off-track and gaining an advantage, dropping him back to fourth behind Verstappen.

On Thursday McLaren requested a right of review, which will be heard by the FIA stewards on Friday.

“I think we are getting to a stage where I almost need the book in the car,” he said. “That’s how it is. I mean, I think if you look, of course, over the years, the book has grown quite a lot, there are more and more rules.

“It is definitely over regulated. But then also, I can see the other point of view, if you take rules away, and then there is again an incident, [it will be] like, ‘Oh, we need more rules. We need to be strong on this.’

“It is always the same thing. In the past, we have maybe some lesser rules, and then you have the same argument. ‘We need to be strong on this or that.’ It’s always the same story.”

Verstappen also countered Norris’s suggestion that he wouldn’t have made the corner and was attempting to ensure that it was ahead at the ape.

“Yeah, it’s quite impressive that people can read my mind. It’s crazy. I mean, I always tried to make the corner. I didn’t want to look for shortcuts. I don’t even know what to answer.”

Asked if he will talk discuss the situation with Norris he noted: “We always said that we wanted to race each other hard. That’s what we like to do.”

Verstappen also reflected on a tricky Austin race in which he couldn’t repeat his sprint winning form, and was vulnerable to attack from Norris.

“Yeah, it was quite a difficult second stint,” he said. “I mean, I lost a lot of grip on the front axle. It was very difficult to brake. And I think that’s what made my defence more difficult, because I knew that if I would brake a little bit too late, I could lock up, and I really didn’t have the front grip.

“It wasn’t easy for me out there. I think all in all, it was still a positive weekend for us, but still a few things, of course, that we want to do better to be in that fight, because I honestly believed going into the race, that I would be in the fight, and we weren’t. And so that wasn’t ideal, but at least it did show some promising signs that maybe we could be back in the fight.”

Regarding the value of the Austin upgrades he said: “It was definitely performance. The car felt a bit more in control, at least more balanced, and that’s what we were looking for as well.”

Stella says there were reasons why McLaren lost its winning form in Austin

McLaren Formula 1 boss Andrea Stella says it was “no surprise” that McLaren struggled in Austin and was outperformed by Ferrari and Red Bull.

Stella stressed that Ferrari has been consistently competitive recently, while not always optimising that performance.

In addition he said that the nature of the COTA layout played to the strengths of the rival cars, and didn’t help McLaren.

“I think in terms of competitiveness, there’s some multiple factors to consider,” said Stella. “When it comes to Ferrari, they have been quick over the previous races pretty consistently. If anything, they’ve not been capable of maximising their potential.

“I think in Baku Leclerc, in fairness, was definitely in condition to win the race. In Singapore we were expecting Leclerc to be very competitive for pole position, and therefore then it would have been the same in the race. So we are not surprised that Ferrari is so close.

“And then when we look at the characteristics of this circuit, in particular because of the braking into very low-speed, and some very high-speed sections, we know that in these two situations, our car is not at the best of its performance.

“And for instance, the very low-speed and the very high-speed is also where Red Bull are very good.

“So if we consider that Ferrari, they were already competitive, if we consider the track layout, and if we consider that Red Bull had three weeks to look at data and think what is going on with their car – and we talk about Red Bull, a very competent group of engineers – then I’m not surprised that in Austin we kind of struggled.”

Stella is more optimistic about the team’s prospects in Mexico City this weekend.

“I think the next circuit should be a little bit more suitable to the characteristics of our car. We also have to keep developing the car, like here.

“We took some developments at the front of the car, but they were nothing too large in terms of potential lap time impact. We have a couple more things that are coming in the next two races. We will see if we are in condition to alter the competitiveness of the car.”

Stella reiterated that the upgrades that didn’t make it to Austin should be proven when they do arrive on track, which has been a theme all year for the team.

“If we were in condition to release them and produce them in time to have them in Austin, we would have brought them to Austin,” he said. “I think the time of new parts and upgrades landing trackside is the natural time of designing, finalising and then producing the new parts.

“I’ve said before that we wanted to make sure that what we bring trackside is well-behaved. And we are quite encouraged.

“And I have to say, well done once again to our aerodynamic team that the parts we took [to Austin], they worked as expected, and hopefully this will be the case also for the parts coming for Mexico and Brazil.”

RB Formula 1 team CEO Peter Bayer says that Liam Lawson’s grid penalty at the US GP allowed his engineers “to go a bit extreme” on the setup of his VCARB 01.

After a disappointing sprint the team tried something different heading into qualifying as it tried to optimise the latest upgrade package, which included a revised floor.

As Lawson was destined to start at the back of the grid due to his PU change penalty there was little to lose by taking a risk.

The changes worked and the New Zealander duly made his point by earning a token third place in Q1 before putting in a charging drive from 19^th to ninth in the race itself.

In so doing he earned two valuable points on a weekend when Haas scored seven and moved ahead in the battle for sixth place in the championship.

“I said to Laurent [Mekies] on the pit wall it’s true we have lost the lead, but we have gained again performance,” Bayer told this writer. “And I think the guys, Alan [Permane] and the team, did a very, very good job in bringing this new floor.

“And especially what happened in qualifying with Liam, because they had no pressure on Liam’s car, and they went a bit extreme on the setup, just trying some stuff. And that’s really what unlocked a lot of performance.”

Bayer was full of praise for Lawson’s drive into the points.

“What a statement!,” he said. “First weekend in the car. And honestly, we thought that probably with the penalty that P3 in Q1, that was a high, and we should be proud and happy.

“Obviously he did a very good job in Turn 1, there with a bit of turmoil, and he kept it clean. And then, honestly, he was faultless in the end.

“He did very good laps, good pace. I think what played into his hands is that the overcut was a lot stronger than we thought.

“Obviously, with the hard, we were expecting to go long, but the way it turned out was definitely more than what we had calculated for.

“So that was great. And then in the end he was managing it really well. And he also said he felt very comfortable in the car. He was working a lot more with the switches than he usually would have done. Overall a very, very impressive performance.”

Bayer believes that despite dropping behind Haas in Austin RB will ultimately be able to recover sixth place.

“We have to be careful, but so far, we believe that we’re ready to fight until the end,” he said. “It’s a very long straight here. Also I felt in the debrief that the guys put their smiles back on their faces, and so they’re confident.

“To see that you have a car that when everything works well, and the driver is capable of exploiting that to the maximum, that you can put it on P3 in Q1 that gives me the confidence to take the fight to those guys.”

Christian Horner admits that it was important for his Red Bull Racing team to “get off the back foot” with a strong performance over the Formula 1 US GP weekend relative to rivals McLaren.

Helped by an upgrade package Max Verstappen won Saturday’s sprint race and then finished third in the main event, behind the two Ferraris.

He outscored Lando Norris for the first time since the summer break, extending his advantage by five points and ending a frustrating run for the team.

“I think it’s a combination of factors,” said Horner. “I think the team have worked very hard, and I think they’ve definitely added performance here. I think there’s more to understand, and more to fine tune.

“But I think coming off the back of Singapore it’s been a strong turnaround. We’ve outscored our nearest competitor in the drivers’ championship by five points this weekend. Three weeks ago, that looked very difficult.”

He added: “Five races to go now, and a 57-point lead. Nothing’s ever comfortable or assured, but it was important for us.

“This is the first time we’ve outscored Lando since I think Spa, so that was important for us to get off the back foot, and more onto the front foot.”

Expanding on what the latest upgrades have achieved Horner said they have helped to address the balance issues that have troubled Verstappen for much of the season.

“I think what it’s done is brought the balance a bit closer together,” he said. “So this disconnect between front and rear, it’s brought more of a balance into the car. And really, from the first lap, Max was much more competitive.

“He was much happier with the car as soon as we got here. So that’s encouraging for some of the races coming up as well. First part of this triple header, sprint race weekend as well, as I say, this is as much as we could have hoped for coming off the back of Singapore.”

However Horner acknowledged that Verstappen had struggled on the hard tyre in the second half of the main race in Austin.

“I think we seemed to engineer into the car a bit more understeer today, and that then sort of killed the front tyres,” he said.

“And compared to yesterday [in the sprint], where we didn’t have any understeer, the car was very quick.

“So we were quick enough to get the pole for the sprint, won the sprint, and had good degradation in the sprint, and the McLaren looked to be the one that was fading.

“Ferrari looked quick all weekend, in fairness. And then, arguably, we should have had the pole yesterday. We had a car that was very strong in quali. And then the weakest that we’ve been has been really on the hard tyre, with a bit too much understeer throughout the race.”

Regarding this weekend’s race in Mexico he said: “The form is moving from day-to-day, circuit-to-circuit. I think Ferrari have brought performance here.

“They’ve looked very strong, particularly in the race trim. It was interesting, obviously, they sacrificed perhaps a little in quality, to benefit in the race. And I’m sure they’ll be competitive in Mexico City.”