Lando Norris reckons Nyck de Vries needs to brake a little earlier after he was hit by him in F1 Miami GP, although it didn’t change his grand prix.
There was not much that happened in F1 Miami GP in terms of incidents barring the start when AlphaTauri’s de Vries ran in the back of McLaren’s Norris. It wasn’t a mega hit fortunately as both managed to get out of it without any major damage.
De Vries had a slightly slower start to Norris and on the approach to Turn 1, the Dutchman had to brake hard to avoid him as he seemingly missed his braking point. The incident was noted, but there was no further action on it considering it was Lap 1.
Norris lost few tenths due to it as per team boss Andrea Stella while de Vries had some front end issues. But considering their pace throughout the grand prix, it didn’t matter with both quite far off from points where their cars just didn’t sync with the circuit.
Norris reckons de Vries need to brake a little earlier as it has become a habit of him missing it, while the Dutchman admitted to his mistake but said that the Brit just came in front of him after a good start which startled him a bit.
Hit from de Vries –
Norris: “You tell me. I don’t know what happened. I just got hit. He’s done that a bit lately, so he needs to try braking a little bit earlier, but it didn’t change my day, I wouldn’t say. I don’t know how much damage there was. There was definitely a little bit, but our lack of pace wasn’t because of that. We were just very slow today.”
No pace –
Norris: “No idea. Just different reasons. The track doesn’t suit us, longer corners don’t suit us, the temperature doesn’t suit us, track surface doesn’t suit us. There’s many different aspects of it all. Just no one was slow either this weekend. Maybe the AlphaTauris were the only other slow car. Everyone else was pretty quick. The Alfa Romeos were mega fast, Haas were mega fast. The Alpines were way quicker. I wouldn’t say we were that much different to where we have been, it’s just everything else was a big step forward and a lot of this is just down to car characteristic in my opinion. So same as what I’ve been saying the whole time.”
Hitting Norris –
De Vries: “Lando had a very good start. He moved to the left, and I was close and just locked up. My mistake. I locked up both wheels. And we just touched and then we ran wide. That’s pretty much it. [It was racing incident] because he came quite late in front of me already kind of in the braking point. I just couldn’t really react. And yeah, I could react by applying more pressure, which is what I did. And then, you know, we locked up. So I think shame for both of us.”
Damage –
De Vries: “No, there was no damage. Just the first run. Well, on the first stint I had a lot of vibrations on the right front. So that was compromising the pace a bit a bit. But when the gap is that big, it’s hard to catch up when there’s no safety car or something happening.”
Stella: “We [Norris] had damage on the floor and the car was down by a few points of downforce, possibly two or three tenths.”
Post-race, a video surfaced where Norris nearly missed a personnel when entering pits for his first stop in F1 Miami GP. It couldn’t be ascertained if it was a marshal or a media person (likely photographer) or from FIA and or local grand prix organisation.
As Norris entered the pits, the person was crossing from pitwall towards the garage. The British driver didn’t speak anything of it on the radio. The moment comes after the incident with Esteban Ocon in Baku, which brought changes from the FIA in Miami.
They said –
- Team mechanics are not permitted to move from their garages to the Parc Fermé with cooling fans in anticipation of their cars stopping at the end of the Race until after the last car has taken the chequered flag.
- Any other personnel or VIPs are not permitted to enter the pit lane until after the last car has taken the chequered flag. Any infringement will result in the removal of passes from the team(s) in question from subsequent events, and potential reporting of the infringing team(s) to the Stewards.
UPDATE: The FIA told PA News Agency that they are looking into the matter. “We are aware of the incident and looking into it with local organisers,” it said in a short statement.
Here’s the start moment: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-miami-grand-prix-pole-sitter-perez-leads-away-from-alonso-on-the-race-start.1765265337898352565.html
Here’s how F1 Miami GP panned out