Lando Norris has expressed confidence he can beat Max Verstappen to the chequered flag in Las Vegas and extend the title fight to Qatar.
Verstappen enters the Las Vegas weekend with his first chance to seal his fourth championship.
The gap between the two drivers reads 62 points - Norris must reduce that deficit to 59 points by the end of the Las Vegas Grand Prix to deny Verstappen the title this weekend.
Verstappen pipped Norris to fifth place on the grid for the Saturday night race, with Norris starting alongside him on the third row.
“Whether he wins it or not tomorrow, it doesn't change anything for me. He's pretty likely to win the championship [this year],” Norris told media including RacingNews365.
“I’m here to race and do my best in every single race I can, whether Max finishes ahead or not. That's life.
“He’s only just ahead of us today. I think we have a chance to beat them tomorrow but I'll go out and do the best like I do in every single race.”
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Norris eying hard tyre opportunities
Norris has been struggling in the cold conditions all weekend in Las Vegas with tyre graining - a common concern in low temperatures.
However, Norris is hopeful it will be able to have better performance when he fits the hard tyre during the race, with the soft compound unlikely to be used.
“It could be that tomorrow, we put on the hard tyre and things come our way a little bit,” he said.
“Every race this year, we've struggled with graining. We've not been good on the softer tyres.
“That's the same now, but it's almost the case in the quali lap, you almost start to grain the tyres already. We struggle a lot in these kind of conditions.
“So I'm hoping when we put a Medium on... they still grain very easily, but when you put the hard on [the car], hopefully things click a little bit.
“It's just our weakness on how the car is with the front tyres, it's been an issue for a while.
“We've not been able to tackle it as much as I would have liked at this point and we're paying the price.”
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