\n<\/p>\n
At the same time, Verstappen has mounted an impressive fightback from being 104 points off the lead after the Dutch Grand Prix, the race before Italy.<\/p>\n
Norris said: “How I am now feels the same as before Mexico when I wasn’t leading. It feels the same as Austin when I still felt good in the car, but Max still won the race.<\/p>\n
“I really don’t feel any different in the car from before I was leading to now when I’m leading.”<\/p>\n
Piastri has not won a race since Zandvoort at the end of August. Since then, Verstappen has won four and Norris two.<\/p>\n
Both McLaren drivers suffered a blow when they were disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix last weekend after the skid blocks on their cars were found to have worn too much.<\/p>\n
Without that, Norris would have been coming into Qatar with a 30-point lead over Piastri, but the 26-year-old said it had not been hard to get over the disappointment of losing second place in Vegas.<\/p>\n
“Of course it hurts,” he said. “There’s a lot of effort that goes into every weekend from everyone, including myself. All that effort just felt like it disappeared very quickly.<\/p>\n
“But it’s the same feeling for all of us. The mechanics, the engineers, myself, everyone in McLaren, feels let down by what we had as a result. And we’re all disappointed.<\/p>\n
“But actually I found it quite easy just to move on and have a few days off and come to this weekend. Yeah, disappointed, of course. But I was fine otherwise.”<\/p>\n
Norris said the team would try to treat this race the same as any other.<\/p>\n
“We treat it very normally,” he said. “There’s no point trying to treat it any differently because we’ve been doing a good job and I’m very happy with the job we’ve all been doing.<\/p>\n
“We know what areas we need to do better, we know what things we need to improve on this year, all the standard stuff. I really try and not treat it any differently because there’s no point. Nothing needs to be treated any differently.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n