Lando Norris wary of Max Verstappen 'threat' after being 'bitten' by Baku

Lando Norris conceded he and Oscar Piastri were 'bitten by Baku', underlining the fact their seemingly two-way F1 drivers' title fight cannot be taken for granted.

Championship leader Piastri suffered a horrendous weekend in Azerbaijan, crashing in qualifying and the race, albeit suffering minimal damage to his advantage in the standings as Norris also struggled.

The Briton started and finished seventh, closing the gap to Piastri from 31 points to 25, with 199 to play from the remaining seven grands prix and three sprints.

With Max Verstappen completing back-to-back victories for the first time in 15 months, the four-time F1 champion is 69 points behind Piastri and 44 adrift of Norris, and cannot theoretically be discounted.

"People have caught up," said Norris, speaking to Sky Sports F1. "Red Bull brought upgrades last weekend [in Italy], so they are clearly doing well, and their race pace is strong.

"But they still won plenty of races this year. It's not a surprise. They've improved in some areas. They're a winning team for the last however many years. We knew they could be a threat.

"We know that some of these tracks are not going to be our best, but it also wasn't our cleanest weekend. So, yeah, things we want to do better."

McLaren 'still not an easy car to drive' - Norris

Norris recognised he had a golden opportunity to eat into Piastri's lead, yet he maintains he did all he could in the circumstances.

The 25-year-old insisted that all he can do is continue to focus on himself, rather than assess what happened to Piastri, and do what he can in the remaining races, additionally appreciating McLaren will again not have it all their own way at some of those.

"Oscar is an incredible driver, so I doubt it will do anything," said Norris. "I think people realise how easy it is to make mistakes around here.

"It shows our car is not easy to get up there. I don't think we were quite as quick as the Red Bull, even following [Yuki] Tsunoda. There were times I was like, 'No chance we can be as quick as them'. So Red Bull is doing a good job.

"We're struggling in some of these lower downforce circuits still. Like Vegas, I think we're going to struggle again.

"But we still have our fair share of doing well and very promising performances. We just keep focused, keep doing what we're doing, keep trying to extract everything after [making] fewer mistakes than we probably made this weekend.

"But I think the mistakes Oscar made and I made just prove it's not an easy car to drive still. It can be unbelievably fast at times, places like here and other tracks, it can still bite you if you just put one foot wrong.

"That's what we're trying to work on. It's difficult to improve, but, yeah, it can bite. It bit me this weekend, and it bit Oscar."