Mark Hughes on happiness for Lando Norris

Mark Hughes analyzed in the pages of The Race the factors that allowed Lando Norris to achieve a stunning victory in Miami.

Lando Norris was of course lucky when the safety car entered the Miami Grand Prix circuit at a very good time, but behind the wheel of the modernized McLaren car he showed an absolutely killer pace, which was clearly higher than that of Red Bull and Ferrari.

Although Lando lost a few tenths to them in qualifying because he didn’t really like the performance of the soft tires, in the race he used medium and hard tires and was simply the fastest.

It took several external factors to turn that pace into victory, but Norris showed an iron grip and took advantage of all these opportunities to take his first win. The excellent way he ran yesterday’s race silenced everyone who made stupid jokes about him after his failed Friday.

Sergio Perez clearly overdid it at the start, which is why the Ferrari cars had to avoid him by going to the left, and Carlos Sainz lost the second position, which he had just taken from Charles Leclerc, his teammate, and also clamped down. himself between two McLaren cars.

Norris drove on the outside track and avoided the participants in this collision, while Oscar Piastri was on the inside and positioned his car perfectly, allowing him first to stay ahead of Sainz and reach third position, and then to second place when the Australian McLaren driver also overtook Leclerc due to DRS.

Until the end of the first segment, Oscar remained some three seconds behind Max Verstappen, being chased by both Ferrari drivers but unable to get within attacking distance. If Sainz had been ahead of Leclerc, the picture might have been different. Carlos felt that he could go faster than his partner, and on the 7th lap he informed the team about this, but Ferrari did not even seriously discuss this at the pit wall.

When Perez returned to the track on the first lap after retiring at Turn 1, Norris had to slow down slightly to avoid a collision with the Mexican, and was stuck behind the Red Bull car for many laps. At that moment it didn’t seem like it could end in his victory.

Although the improved MCL38 was aerodynamically more efficient, it still lacked the speed on the straights to overtake its rivals. With DRS open, Norris’s car could not go faster at the end of the straight than a Red Bull with the rear wing closed. But even as Lando rode behind Perez’s car in turbulence, he still felt his McLaren had regained the excellent pace he was capable of on Friday on the Medium tyres.

Strangely enough, the picture with the pace was different on different days: on Friday the car was super fast, on Saturday it lost to Red Bull and Ferrari, but on Sunday it drove the same as on the first day of the weekend. But it wasn’t just Norris who found himself in a similar situation: in Miami everyone was dealing with unstable tire performance. Verstappen was constantly dissatisfied with the balance of the RB20, and Leclerc was also not happy with the behavior of the SF-24.

During the first part of the race, Lando slowed down a bit to save his tires. But then, closer to the pit stop time, he stopped again at Perez, as McLaren did not rule out that they would try to get ahead of the Mexican due to an earlier visit to the pits, as Sergio simply could not go faster.

Another Red Bull Racing driver, Max Verstappen, maintained a three-second lead over Piastri, but it was far from a classic race for the three-time world champion, who later complained of feeling uncomfortable behind the wheel: “I couldn’t not relying on the rear tires when accelerating at low speeds, and understeering at high speeds.”

Red Bull called Perez into the pits at the end of lap 17 and then we saw Norris increase the pace to incredible levels. He started to lap one and a half seconds faster than when he was behind Sergio. But now he has already started to overtake Sainz.

Leclerc, whose dissatisfaction with the performance of the tires only increased as they wore out, Ferrari invited him for a pit stop on the 19th lap to try to use this tactic to take the pressure off Piastri, who remained on track enlarge. However, as Sainz was no longer held back by his teammate, Carlos started to drive half a second faster, but Norris was still around 0.5 seconds faster and already closing in.

When Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen’s race engineer, asked Max about Norris’s pace, he replied: “I can’t reach that pace on worn-out Medium tyres. His pace is just insane!….”

Leclerc lapped faster than Verstappen on fresh hard tires, and Max gained speed, but at the same time he flew off the track at Turn 15 and hit a post – then it turned out that the underside of the RB20 was damaged, but Max said he felt no difference in car behavior.

The downed pole was on the track at the exit of Turn 16 and it is clear that it posed a hazard. The Virtual Safety Car (VSC) mode was introduced, but Verstappen had already passed the pit lane entrance. The VSC mode was quickly canceled and Max had to go for new tires as the peloton charged back at full speed. He returned to the track for Leclerc.

At that moment, Sainz already felt threatened by Norris, who overtook him, and made a pit stop on the 27th lap. In the pit lane he turned behind Piastri and they returned to the track in the same order. However, Oscar ended up behind Leclerc, but Norris took the lead in the race. Moments later, Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargent collided, after which it was necessary to evacuate Williams’ car, which broke down after hitting a barrier.

This was very bad news for Piastri and Sainz, because Norris was able to save about 10 seconds on a pit stop compared to his rivals. However, the situation almost became a problem for Lando as well. If he had been behind the safety car that had entered the track, he would have had to follow it for a while on old tires, but the safety car pulled ahead of Verstappen’s car. This allowed Norris to pit and return without losing first position.

Before the restart, the top six looked like this: Norris – Verstappen – Leclerc – Piastri – Sainz – Perez. When the battle resumed on track, Max put pressure on Lando, who had to fend off the attack in the 1st corner. However, he went so much faster that at the end of the lap he was over a second ahead of the Red Bull and could no longer use Max DRS.

Norris stayed ahead of Verstappen by around 0.3 seconds per lap – the McLaren’s lead on the hard tires was even greater than on the Medium.

As Lando said later, it seemed to him like he was driving at an easy pace, but he crossed the finish line 7.6 seconds ahead of Verstappen. There was no doubt that Norris was the fastest driver at the Miami Grand Prix, but the question is: could he have won without the appearance of the safety car?

“It wouldn’t be easy,” Norris admitted after the race. “Before I could get to Max, I would have to be ahead of both Ferraris and my partner.”

Overall, there was an element of luck in his success. Which doesn’t change the fact that Lando simply performed brilliantly and opened the scoring for the victories.