Lando Norris would have liked to finish fourth in the WRC, but emphasizes that it doesn’t matter in the end – it’s more important to have kept P4 in the Constructors’ Championship
“Would I have liked to have finished fourth? Yes,” admits Lando Norris after the 2023 Formula 1 season finale in Abu Dhabi. The McLaren driver finished the race in P5 and the drivers’ world championship in a very close sixth place
At the end of the season, Norris stands on 205 points, with Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc ahead of him on 206. Ultimately, Leclerc in particular simply had “a very good weekend”, admits Norris, who does not mourn P4 in the championship.
After all, only first place counts anyway, “so it doesn’t bother me that much,” Norris clarifies. Fourth place would have been nice, “but it doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t change my mentality in any way,” emphasizes the Briton.
And as it was not about the title for him, the constructors’ world championship had “priority”, he emphasizes. And in this respect, McLaren “finished ahead of Aston [Martin], which was our main goal,” says Norris with satisfaction.
Fourth place in the constructors’ championship was secured in Abu Dhabi, “and apart from that, it’s first or nothing,” Norris clarifies once again. In the race itself, Norris started in P3 but was unable to hold on to the podium position until the end
Norris: Had to push the tires too hard
As a result of a slow pit stop, he initially lost a position to George Russell and was later passed by Sergio Perez. “To be honest, with the cooler temperatures and things like that, we were expecting a bit more,” admits Norris.
“We were expecting our race pace to maybe be a bit stronger,” emphasizes Norris, who was in a battle with Charles Leclerc and Russell in the first stint. “Because of the lack of pace, I had to push very hard to keep up with the Mercedes and the Ferrari,” he explains.
“And when I did that, I destroyed the tires very quickly,” said Norris. It was therefore a “tough battle” right from the start, “but I did what I could. And I tried as hard as I could, it just wasn’t quite enough today,” he admits.
But he also clarifies: “It wasn’t as if the Ferrari and Mercedes pulled away. If I had stayed ahead of the Mercedes at the pit stop, would I have been able to stay ahead because of the ‘dirty air’? Possibly. “
Norris is annoyed: We were also “a bit unlucky “
Because when the two of them ran into other cars after the stop, “it was always to his advantage, and sometimes I caught them at the end of the straight so that I had to spend a whole lap behind them,” Norris reports.
“So I was a bit unlucky at times. But George did a good job. Mercedes did a good job,” he clarifies, emphasizing once again that the main problem was simply that he didn’t have enough pace in the race.
Ultimately, the McLaren simply struggled once again in the “very slow corners”. “I think the parts [of the track] that we struggled with were clear. It was just the very slow corners, turns 5 to 6, 7, and then 12, 13, 14,” said Norris.
This is the second time in his Formula 1 career that the Briton has finished a season in sixth place in the Drivers’ World Championship. He had previously achieved this in 2021 and has never finished better at the end of a season
