Lando Norris believes he was “too critical” of himself in Barcelona as he searches for the key to consistently beating Max Verstappen
Lando Norris admits he was too critical of his start at the Spanish Grand Prix as he tries to find a way to beat Max Verstappen in Formula 1. Norris was just 0.020 seconds quicker than championship leader Verstappen in Barcelona qualifying, showing just how close the battle is between the two teams.
However, the McLaren driver was unable to enjoy his advantage for long as he was unable to keep Verstappen at bay and then had to watch as Mercedes driver George Russell passed them both to take the lead at turn one. Norris fought his way past Russell to take second place, but Red Bull remained out of reach.
In his typically self-critical style, Norris blamed himself for not starting as well as Verstappen and felt that he had squandered his chance of a second career win as a result. After the post-race analysis, Norris admits that he was too self-critical, as Verstappen had only a slightly better start and there was little chance against Russell’s strong slipstream on the long approach to turn one anyway.
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But it’s indicative of the final percentage Norris believes he and McLaren need to find to beat the Verstappen-Red Bull, which is getting results even at nominally weaker tracks like Imola or Montreal. When asked where the final percentage should come from, he replies: “I don’t think there’s a simple answer to that.”
“Even my start wasn’t a bad start. I was perhaps a bit overcritical when I said I had a bad start, but that’s not true and George would have overtaken me anyway. It’s just that in every little area we need a bit more preparation or a bit more practice on Fridays or Saturdays to get these things under control.”
“I could have just tried to be a hero and overtake Max around the outside and that would have just caused an accident and I would have taken George out of the race. After turn two everything was very good, even our strategy. I know we got a lot of criticism about the strategy, but that comes from people who have no idea what they are talking about. So I’m very happy with 99.5 percent. Just a few meters off the line cost me last weekend. “
This is just one example of how every little detail has to be right to challenge Red Bull, even though McLaren appeared to have the fastest car in Spain. But Norris doesn’t believe his MCL38 was that much quicker than Verstappen’s RB20, instead pointing to the fresher tires as the reason he was able to close the gap in the final stint
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“Even looking back at last weekend, I don’t necessarily think we had a much faster car than Red Bull,” he emphasizes. “I looked faster than Max because I did longer stints and had a good tire delta. It might not look like much, but four laps of tire difference to another car in Barcelona is pretty extreme in terms of lap time difference.”
However, Norris says his car has developed into an all-rounder in recent races after the low-speed weaknesses were eradicated, which is why he wants to keep challenging Verstappen to repeat his only win so far in Miami.
“There are just tiny little things I needed to tidy up and as a team we need to do a slightly better job,” he adds. “But a lot of it was at the level we need to be at so we can go on and win some races. I definitely think that’s possible with the way the team is presenting itself and the way I’m presenting myself at the moment.”
“But we are competing against one of the best drivers of all time in Formula 1, against one of the best performing teams in Formula 1, so everything has to go perfectly and not everything went perfectly last weekend. That one thing that wasn’t perfect cost us that. “
