Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri react to F1 Las Vegas GP disqualification and how they see the remaining two rounds, with Max Verstappen adding his bit.
Despite the double disqualification, both Norris and Piastri were relaxed after F1 Las Vegas GP – obviously hugely disappointed. They had a hunch about the result when leaving the circuit. While during the race, they don’t think they could have done things hugely different to avoid it.
The porpoising contributed hugely towards it which they think should be better in Qatar. In terms of the championship, Norris sees no change considering he still has 24 points advantage, now over both Piastri and Verstappen. Even though there is a chance to seal it in Qatar, he has no special feelings.
In fact, Norris alludes that he has been feeling largely the same for most part of the year irrespective of his position in the drivers’ standings, whether behind or leading. Verstappen has always been counted as one of the threats and the Brit reckons they have been proven right to see him as one all-through.
There is no mind games from his end considering that he doesn’t know what all goes about on social media. For Verstappen, he sees the 2021 experience as a handy one going into the final two races being close to win a championship. He is seeing things no differently, but is happy to be in the mix.
He agrees that after Zandvoort when he was over 100 points behind, he had almost given up on the year but things changed then after for good. He is against team orders at McLaren as well, much like how Piastri is. The Australian highlighted that there will be none of that since he is still in contention.
Reaction to DQ, how found out –
Norris: “Yeah. Honestly, it wasn’t, I mean, there was some small expectation of it already, so it wasn’t like it was a complete shock or out of nowhere, so I think we were quite prepared for what the result could be. But I actually was quite fine, I left the track. We did our debrief, we talked about, what was good, what was not good, things we could improve, things that needed to be better for here. Of course, one main thing, but other than that, we treated everything very normal. Of course, it hurts, there’s a lot of effort that goes into every weekend from everyone, including myself. And it certainly made, yeah, all that effort just felt like it disappeared very quickly, but it’s the same feeling for all of us, the mechanics, the engineers, myself, everyone in McLaren feels let down by what we had as a result.
“And we’re all disappointed, but actually, I was very much, I found it quite easy just to move on and have a few days off and come to this weekend. So yeah, disappointed, of course, but that was fine otherwise. I have been feeling same as it has been, to be honest. I don’t know, I feel good. Yeah, I’ve had a nice few days. I arrived Monday morning, so I’ve been here a while. I’ve played some golf, played some paddle, enjoyed some days off, enjoyed some warm weather for once. I feel like it’s been a while. No, I feel good, I feel excited for this weekend. I don’t feel like I had a bad weekend last weekend, or we had a bad result, so that’s a good thing.”
Piastri: “I think ultimately it’s never a good thing, having the result we had, yes obviously it prevents me from losing those six points to Lando, it also brings Max much closer into the fight, so I think overall it’s still a net negative, just a pretty difficult for the team and a painful ending. I knew we were in trouble when we were at the circuit, being called to the stewards while I was still at the circuit and when you get called to the stewards for anything but especially something like that, we try to be optimistic but there’s only a certain amount of optimism you can have so I knew we were not in great shape at that point. Officially I found out when I was at the airport.”
Verstappen: “Yeah, I was flying home. I knew of course there was some kind of investigation of course going into the plank and yeah, I mean, when it’s too low, it’s too low. Yeah, I mean, there’s so much that you can argue about that. Of course, every team always runs it of course as low as they possibly can and sometimes yeah, you get it right. Sometimes it’s a bit harder to measure, but there’s no excuse. When you’re too low, it’s too low. Same with other rules in the sport. Unfortunately, it’s like that. Of course, the gap closed a bit with that, but still 24 points. A lot needs to go well till the end to have a chance, but it’s definitely a better chance than what it was before that. So we take it, but yeah, you need to also be aware that even if you win everything, you still need a bit of luck, right? So we’ll see. We’ll see how that goes. For us, nothing changes. You know, we go all in. We have nothing to lose.”
Could have done something about it –
Norris: “No, it’s certainly not that simple, I think. Yeah, like Andrea mentioned in the Q&A, there’s a lot more detail of all these things. It’s not as simple as just lifting more and it just being better, especially because the issue was the porpoising, it wasn’t because we were just running low. Sometimes it can be the opposite. So yeah, there was an issue, like sometimes you lift more, you get more porpoising, and it’s actually a worse effect. Yeah, no, there was a big gap behind, and I tried a bit more. We’re talking small things, but small things at times can also add up to a bigger amount. It’s the rules, it’s the way it is. No, I don’t think starting any earlier, I was lifting the whole race, so starting any earlier would not have made a difference. In some ways, you can almost say we didn’t take enough risks. It’s not as simple as just looking at it and going, they [Red Bull] did that and that’s why they were quick.
“In fact, we were slower because of the issues we had, not quicker. We’re almost more excited to just get it better for this weekend because we’ll have more performance. Every team, when you’re in Formula 1, you’re fighting for race wins and everything. You always have to push things to the limit, meaning that’s exactly what we did in Las Vegas, because it’s a lot more complicated, but at the same time, we still want to win these last few races. We still need to push everything to the limit, as you always do, because Red Bull are just as quick. If we don’t put things in the right condition, like in Brazil, they’ll be quicker than us and they’ll win. We’re here because we want to win. We’re going to fight to the end and that’s what I want to do as well.”
Piastri: “Not necessarily, we had a lot of porpoising in the race which ultimately is the main reason for being illegal in skid wear, I did feel that but there’s been certain races through my career where sometimes you feel like you have a lot of grounding and not that much skid wear, sometimes you feel like you don’t have much and you’re wearing through them like crazy so it depends a little bit from circuit to circuit but definitely it was not the most comfortable of races in the car but yeah I didn’t realise the extent of how bad it was for skid wear on my car, we had a sensor fail at the start of the race so we couldn’t actually, we didn’t know exactly how bad it was but yeah it’s difficult to tell normally.”
Verstappen threat, title chance –
Norris: “We’ve treated him as a threat the whole year, even when he was a few more points behind. Every briefing we had before every race, we always have our little team meetings, every single race we treat him as a threat because we know what he’s capable of, we know what Red Bull is capable of, so therefore nothing changes now, because he’s still the threat he’s always been through the whole year. Nothing changes from anyone’s side, from engineers, mechanics, myself. We treat it very normally, there’s no point trying to treat it any differently because we’ve been doing a good job, and I’m very happy with the job we’ve all been doing. We know what areas we need to do better, we know what things we need to improve on, this year, next year, all the standard stuff. I’m really trying not to treat it any differently because there’s no point, it doesn’t need to be treated any differently. No, because the gap before was 24 and it’s still 24.
“My gap in the lead is the same, nothing needs to change. We were still quick last weekend, we would have been even quicker without the issues. We know Red Bull have just been quick lately, so we expect them to be quicker this weekend, we expect them to be good next weekend, but there’s nothing that needs to change from anyone’s side. Like I said, we treated him and Red Bull as a great team and a great competitor the whole season, and that just continues now. Nothing changes for all of us. No, both are the same. I think they’re both just as good as one another. I know what Max is capable of and I think Oscar is capable of exactly the same as what Max can do. No, I think the advantage…both have pros and cons. Him being in a different team and Oscar also being in a champion’s team. So I think both have pros and cons. But each driver wants to fight for their own thing and prove that they’re the best. I think they’re both competitive, they’re both very strong, they’re both incredible drivers and I’m excited to give them a good fight on track.
“It’s easy to look at it that way, but I don’t think it changes. I feel like how I am now feels the same as before Mexico when I wasn’t leading. It feels the same as Austin when I still felt good in the car, but Max still won the race. I really don’t feel any different in the car from before I was leading to now when I’m leading. You keep bringing it up and that’s probably the most I think about it is when you guys talk about it all the time. Otherwise it doesn’t affect anything. But I know that they’ve been strong. Like I said, they’ve been strong many, many times, especially since Monza, they’ve had a great run of form. But I feel relaxed. I feel as relaxed as I was before when I was 35 points behind the lead. And I feel the same when I’m 24 points ahead. So that’s my strength for now.”
Piastri: “Not necessarily no, I mean I think every weekend you try to get the best result you can and whether that’s round one or round 23 that’s the same mentality so obviously yes I know what the state of play is in terms of the championship picture but ultimately the best way of keeping my hopes in as good a shape as I can is trying to go out and win and get the best results I can. I think there’s still a chance and it’s played out that way a couple of times before so I know it’s not impossible, obviously I also know that it’s a bit of an outside shot, I can’t just rely on, even if I have a perfect final two weekends I can’t just rely on that, I need other things to go my way and I’m very aware of that so I think for me I’m just going to try and have the best weekends I can, which I try and do every weekend and see what happens to everyone else basically.
“Yeah, confident I would say [about Qatar], I think it’s a circuit that I enjoyed, a circuit I’ve done well at in the past, I think Vegas was looking reasonable from a pace point of view, just qualifying the end of Q3 didn’t go how I wanted and then the race, yeah obviously the race was what it was and a few mistakes in there but I think the pace when I had, clean air to be able to use my pace was pretty good so I don’t think, I think we’ve already found a lot of improvements in those kind of conditions but obviously here is a much different circuit, much higher speed, very grippy tarmac, pretty consistent, maybe some wind around but pretty consistent temperatures at least so yeah hopefully it can be a good weekend.”
Social media, mind games –
Norris: “You can ask everyone probably and they will answer something different. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. It depends on what you look at. It depends on what you read. I’ve not been on social media, so I’ve not seen anything. I don’t know what people have said or whatever. I’m sure people always try and say things. That’s all part of it. You try and say things as a team and other people try and mix stuff up and disrupt everything. But I think we had a tough weekend last weekend. It hurts, but we took it on the chin and we have to fight again this weekend. For me, no mind games. I don’t think it really affects me at all. I’m happy other people can spend and waste their energy on thinking of things. I don’t see any of it, so I’m fine.”
Verstappen: “I will just do it my way. For sure, it helps a little bit. I mean, if I look at myself at 21 and now, for example, yeah, for sure, having the experience helps in terms of how to approach a race week. Even if you say it doesn’t or it shouldn’t help, it does help. But at the end of the day, the most important is that you have a fast car. So that’s what we have to make sure, that we are faster than them or at least equal-ish. And then with that, we still need a bit of luck. I mean, even if they tense up, let’s say like that, and they finish P2, P3, it’s still fine. So yeah, from our side, everything needs to go really well and then we might need a little help.”
Team orders –
Piastri: “We’ve had a very brief discussion on it and the answer is no, I’m still equal on points with Max and I’ve got a decent shot of still winning it if things go my way so yeah that’s how we’ll play.”
Verstappen: “No, it’s perfect, I think. Yeah, I think you can’t do a better job than allowing them to race as well. Because why would you suddenly now say that Oscar wouldn’t be allowed anymore to… I mean, if that was said to me, I would have not rocked up. I would have told him to F**k off. So yeah, if you’re a real winner and a racer as a driver, then you go for it. I mean, even if you’re behind, I mean, what’s the point otherwise to turning up? Otherwise, you can easily just label yourself as a number two driver, which I think he doesn’t want to be. So yeah, and then for me, I mean, yeah, I know that I’m equal on points with Oscar. Like I said before, a lot still needs to go right. But I think it should be like that, that they are free to race and hopefully we can make it a great battle till the end.”
Do something radical –
Piastri: “No I think, again I think Austin and Mexico were very much a similar problem and similar kind of things going wrong or things I couldn’t get on top of that quickly, I think Brazil honestly was not a bad weekend from a pace point of view, the crash I had in the sprint meant that we couldn’t get the car in quite the window we had it after that given all the repairs we had to do and kind of the short time frame so I think when you factor in some of the things that happened that weekend the pace was actually quite good so I don’t think it’s been an ongoing problem after Mexico, definitely Austin and Mexico were the same issue but I think the last two weekends have more just been a combination of mistakes and kind of other things outside of pace.”
Thought title chance would be there back in the season –
Verstappen: “No, personally not. I mean, I was probably after that race, then I got home, I was like, that’s it, you know, we checked out of the championship. But after that, we had a really good turnaround. We definitely understood the car a bit better, put upgrades on the car. So yeah, all in all, together with probably some mistakes as well on the other side, and us maximizing quite a few results, meant that, yeah, we are here. I’m happy with it. I would have been a bit happier if we would have had a better first half. But that’s how life is, you know, you cannot turn back in time and then change it. But yeah, overall now until the end, we’ll just try and do the best we can.”
Here’s Andrea Stella explaining the situation
Here’s Max Verstappen after Las Vegas GP win
Here’s McLaren pair on Las Vegas GP run
