Lewis Hamilton and George Russell say same thing about Lando Norris ahead of British GP

Lewis Hamilton, George Russell and Lando Norris will all be strong podium contenders at the British Grand Prix, but it remains to be seen if any can topple Max Verstappen

Lando Norris has been backed by his fellow Brits as the nation’s best hope of a home victory at Silverstone this weekend.

Norris and McLaren have been the ones taking the fight to Max Verstappen in recent weeks. And he heads into the British Grand Prix weekend just days after they collided while fighting for the lead in Austria last Sunday.

George Russell picked up the pieces to record only his second F1 win, but admits he will need more such luck to get the better of them at Silverstone. The Mercedes driver said: “It’s going to be a good fight again this weekend.

“Lando and Max are probably going to be the two guys out at the front – they’ve looked really fast in the high-speed corners at the last couple of races and at Silverstone there are a lot of high-speed sections. Those guys will be the favourites, but I don’t think we’ll be too far behind.”

Lewis Hamilton concurred that Mercedes still aren’t able to compete on even footing, but was proud of the progress the Silver Arrows have made. He said: “On pure performance, I think we are in the same place as we’ve seen in the last couple of races.

“We’re not that far behind and I think we’ve definitely seen some huge strides forward. It’s really great to see that we are slowly getting closer to the front-runners.” Norris furiously demanded an apology from Verstappen in the aftermath of their collision which forced him to retire from the Austria race.

But he backtracked yesterday after two phone conversations with his rival earlier in the week and admitted: “Honestly I don’t think he needed to apologise. I think some of the things I said in the pen after the race were more just because I was frustrated at the time. A lot of adrenaline, a lot of emotions.

“I probably said some things I didn’t necessarily believe in, especially later on in the week. It’s tough, it was a pretty pathetic incident in terms of what ended both our races.”

Norris didn’t want to discuss what was said during those phone calls, but Verstappen was more forthcoming and said he had told his rival: “You can trust me that I’m not there to try and crash you out of the way.” The Dutchman is likely to get a hostile reception this weekend at Silverstone, where he has been booed on each of his last two visits over his past rivalry with Hamilton.

He insisted, though: “I don’t give a s*** about that. I’ve had [booing] already before, you know? So I just focus on the performance. Everything is cleared, which for me was the most important [thing] so we move on.”