Norris jokes Piastri should "emulate Senna" to stop Verstappen

Lando Norris has joked that McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri should “emulate Senna” to stop Max Verstappen running away with victory at the F1 Japanese Grand Prix.

Lewis Larkam

23 Sep 2023

The McLaren duo starred in qualifying as Piastri claimed second place behind Verstappen’s dominant Red Bull, while Norris was just 0.035s behind his teammate in third.

When asked if they can do anything to prevent Verstappen from claiming his 13th win of the season on Sunday, Norris jokingly suggested that Piastri could replicate Ayrton Senna’s actions at the start of the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix.

The legendary Brazilian rammed into rival Alain Prost at Turn 1 to take them both out of the race and controversially clinch that year’s world title in the process.

“We’re going to try. If he’s leading by Turn 2, there’s not a lot you can really do,” Norris said.

“I don’t know. If you want to emulate Senna, Oscar, into Turn 1, you can do that hopefully. It would be lovely for me!

“We’ll try. I think our pace is decent. It’s definitely not going to be as good as the Red Bull, but we’ll do our best.”

Asked the same question moments before Norris, Piastri, who impressed on his first visit to Suzuka, responded: “We tried our best at Silverstone so we’ll try and do the same thing, but obviously it’s going to be difficult.

“I think it’s going to be a difficult race tomorrow. Very different to Silverstone in that regard. It could be a lot more open, I think.”