Norris 'ready to go' for 'tricky' part of season

Lando Norris is second in the drivers' championship, nine points behind McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri

Dutch Grand Prix

Venue: Zandvoort Dates: 29-31 August Race start: 14:00 BST on Sunday

Coverage: Live commentary on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra; live text updates on BBC Sport website and app

Lando Norris says he is "ready to go" for what he expects to be "a long, tricky, challenging second part of the season" as Formula 1 resumes after its summer break.

The Briton trails his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri by nine points heading into this weekend's Dutch Grand Prix with no other driver realistically in the fight.

Norris has won three of the past four races, riding his luck at times, but dismissed the idea that he had momentum in the championship.

He said: "The deeper meaning [of momentum] is does it give you more confidence and give you more knowledge and give you a better mindset?

"Just the fact of having two good races doesn't mean I'm going to have a third good one."

There are 10 grands prix remaining in the season, which concludes in Abu Dhabi in December.

Briton Norris acknowledged that he had made mistakes at various points in the season that had affected his championship chances.

He pin-pointed an error under braking for the hairpin that cost him pole for the sprint race in China, which Piastri won and Norris finished eighth, and running into the back of his team-mate in Canada.

There were others, too, including a crash in qualifying in Saudi Arabia and losing places on the first lap in Miami by running off track trying to pass Max Verstappen's Red Bull.

Norris said: "Could I have at times made maybe better decisions? I think so.

"I wouldn't say I regret it. But do I wish I could do it better and do it again, yeah. But I don't regret making those decisions at the time. That's life.

"Sometimes it goes your way and you get lucky and sometimes it goes the other way and you don't make the best decisions but those are the times you learn the most."

Norris acknowledged also that other events had played a part in his deficit not being bigger than it is.

This is a reference to Piastri losing the wins at Silverstone and Hungary. In Silverstone, the Australian received a controversial penalty for braking behind the safety car, and in Hungary Norris was able to recover from a bad start by switching to a one-stop strategy mid-race that even he at the time did not think would get him the win.

Norris said: "I have certainly had a little bit of luck. I have also been unlucky. But that is life. I can't change those things.

"This year I've had a car that I've found a lot trickier to drive but I have made some good steps forward to come back and improve and I would not have won in Budapest if I had not improved in that way.

"I have also made good decisions and kept myself out of trouble, stuck by the rules. All those things are part of being a racing driver and at times they have gained me points. That's down to me doing a good job at times."

Piastri would be leading the championship by 37 points if he had won in Silverstone and Budapest rather than Norris.

But he said: "I certainly don't feel hard done by.

"There's always going to be things in racing that you don't necessarily agree with or don't go the way you want and that's just part of it. Sometimes it makes you wonder where you can just edge forward.

"We've done a lot of things well that we can control this year. There's been some tough moments and tough lessons, but I'm very confident with the position that I'm in.

"I feel like I've driven well this year. So yeah, there is an alternate universe where a lot of things look very different, but none of that matters."

Both drivers said the team would continue with their policy of allowing them to race each other, including the option of picking different strategies.