Lando Norris started from pole position in Barcelona, but fell back to third place in the first corner, behind George Russell and Max Verstappen. The McLaren driver fought back throughout the race and was only two seconds behind Max at the finish. After the race, Lando said he should have won.
His teammate Oscar Piastri finished seventh and helped McLaren close the gap to Ferrari in the battle for second place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Lando Norris (2nd): “I should have won, but I had a bad start and that was the end of it. In Turn 1 Max managed to get to the inside line, but if George Russell hadn’t been on the outside I could have defended the position and fought back. But if I had tried to brake later than him, we would have collided.
It’s just that George had a perfect start, used the slipstream perfectly while accelerating, and there was nothing I could do about that. This is Barcelona, there are still 600 meters to the first corner, so if you are in the lead, you will not have the opportunity to take advantage of the slipstream and you will be noticeably inferior in speed to those behind you.
I will have to analyze and understand everything I did wrong. But then everything turned out great. The car was incredible today – there’s no doubt we were the fastest, but the start didn’t go well.
I’m angry even though there were a lot of positive things. I’m 99% satisfied and there is only one negative moment, but that was the moment that ruined the race. I know that, and the team deserved a winning finish. However, we still earned a lot of points, were on the podium and won another cup. Thanks to the team for a great car.”
Oscar Piastri (7th): “Obviously it was a difficult weekend. Even before the start of the race you could assume that 7th place was a realistic result, although I came quite close to Carlos Sainz in the final laps. But I have to admit that I just didn’t have enough pace this weekend.
It is important to understand what this is related to, although if you start from the depths of the peloton at the end of qualifying, of course, problems are guaranteed for you. As for the possible causes of the problems, we are already starting to understand some things, but some questions have no answers yet.
However, we have not yet had time to analyze everything in detail, because there are many more complexities than we have been able to comprehend.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
