Lando Norris pokes fun at Valtteri Bottas with reminder of infamous turn one incident

Lando Norris is thankful a certain Finnish driver is not behind him as he lines up P3 in this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

The McLaren man continued his good form of recent races by securing a second-row lockout alongside his team-mate Oscar Piastri and will be looking to make it back-to-back podiums come the end of Sunday’s race.

And Norris believes that task is a lot easier without one Valtteri Bottas starting behind him.

The cheeky dig was a reference to the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix when Bottas played his own game of Formula 1 bowling as he managed to take out multiple cars going into turn 1.

芬兰人可能已经开始在前面row alongside then team-mate Lewis Hamilton but made a terrible start off the line and allowed Norris, who began the race in P6, to overtake on the inside.

In the wet conditions, Bottas braked too late going into the corner and slammed into the rear end of Norris who was helpless as he went into Max Verstappen.

Meanwhile Bottas kept going and hit Sergio Perez, making it a nightmare day for Red Bull at a time when they were fighting Mercedes for the championship.

This time round, Norris is happy Bottas is a little further back.

“I mean Bottas isn’t behind me at the minute so that’s a good start,” he replied when asked how he would approach Turn 1.

“But we’ll see, it’s going to be tough. Mercedes are very good starters, Lewis included so to get them off the line is going to be a challenge. I think they’re consistently one of the best starters on the grid.”

Norris’ fun-poking was not confined to Bottas alone as he also suggested that if Verstappen had a poor start as he did last time out in Great Britain, then it would be “wonderful.”

“If Max can do what he did in Silverstone, it’ll be wonderful.

“It changes every weekend. I think I just need to focus on getting a good start myself, focus on my own job and we’ll see from there.”