Lando Norris' confidant lays down the gauntlet for a potential Max Verstappen title fight: "He'll race him differently next year"

Lando Norris' confidant and team principal, Zak Brown, has laid down the gauntlet and claimed that the McLaren driver will race Max Verstappen differently next season. The 2024 F1 season saw Verstappen square off against Norris as the two battled for the title.

As the battle intensified between the two drivers during the year, so did Max Verstappen's ruthless nature on the track. There were races where the drivers came close to making contact or even made contact with each other. There were races like the one in Austria, Austin, or Mexico, where things got contentious.

Zak Brown felt that Lando Norris learned a lot from his battles with Max Verstappen, as the Dutch driver was very close to going over the limit many times. Zak Brown also theorized that one of the reasons why Norris was a bit conservative when battling Verstappen was because he always had the constructors' championship at the back of his mind and hence did not have the luxury of risking a double DNF with his rival.

Talking to Sportskeeda about how Norris might not have to keep that in mind in 2025, Brown backed his driver to approach the Verstappen challenge a bit differently. He told the media,

"I think Lando has learned a lot on how to race Max. I think Max has been transparent on how he races, i.e., try and pass me on the outside, I've been trained to not let you pass me on the outside."

He added,

"I think Lando put up a great fight in Mexico, but also kept them out of an accident, and we got the constructors' going on. Lewis eventually went right, this might end in tears for both of us. We can't afford that lesson at this moment. So I think Lando has done the right thing, and I think he knows how to race Max, and I think he'll race him differently next year."

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Lando Norris' teammate on battling Max Verstappen

Lando Norris' teammate Oscar Piastri also touched on challenging Max Verstappen in the future and felt that this was always going to be something different. Just like Norris, Piastri would be looking to challenge Verstappen for the title in 2025 and admitted that Verstappen does pose a different challenge for everyone.

Speaking to media including Spportskeeda about how the battle with the Dutch driver tends to be a challenge, Norris said,

“You can't take anything away from Max in terms of his ability, in terms of his success, his results. He’s definitely an incredibly ruthless racer. It's obvious from watching his career that he makes life incredibly tough and pushes the boundaries of the rules."

It will be interesting to see what kind of challenge Max Verstappen could face in the 2025 F1 season with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri now having a season's worth of experience under them.