Lando Norris said that he didn’t mean for an aggressive move in F1 Spanish GP, as Carlos Sainz noted that he did not make it easy either.
On different strategies, Ferrari’s Sainz caught up with McLaren’s Norris mid-way in the F1 Spanish GP, after the latter moved aside for teammate Daniel Ricciardo just a lap before. The Australian was being chased by the Spaniard in the battle for sixth place.
While trying to pass Norris at Turn 1, the Brit moved slightly in the braking zone, which forced Sainz to react quickly and go around the outside of him. The McLaren driver was immediately cautioned with a black and white flag for nearly causing a clash.
Post-race, Norris wanted to see a helicopter view of the incident, but added that he didn’t mean to have an aggressive move on Sainz. “I need look at it from above, get a bird’s eye view,” he said when speaking to TV media. I was going to defend to Carlos and I moved over and then I moved again slightly, which you’re not really allowed to do.
“So I didn’t mean to do anything aggressive, I knew he was coming past. So it was just the way it is. But I didn’t mean anything. Overall, the result was expected really, there were no surprises, as it is very difficult to pass. It is pretty tough to get close with the DRS in the final sector.
“We did what we could, the only thing we managed to do good is switching to two-stop strategy which allowed us to pass Ocon, I think that was the only thing that we could have done. Maybe it didn’t look good but it was a decent race and we did what we could,” summed up Norris, as Sainz added that the Brit did not make it easy for him.
“He didn’t made it easy,” said Sainz. “It was on the limit and he moved quite late, I just reacted enough to make it stick. I could overtake Lando because I had big tyer delta and with Daniel, we were on the same aged tyres, maybe I was 3-4 tenths quicker, but that is not enough to overtake in Barcelona.
“Also, with the PU they have on the back of their car this year, the acceleration they were getting out of Turn 15, it was quite impressive. I couldn’t pass Daniel and Ocon on track and I had to do it with strategy and it was a bit of a shame,” summed up Sainz.
Here’s the video of the move: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2021/5/2021_Spanish_Grand_Prix__Sainz_overtakes_former_team_mate_Norris.html
Here’s how F1 Spanish GP panned out