Lando Norris rues the lost position to Fernando Alonso in F1 British GP after strategy miss-calculation as Daniel Ricciardo left with no pace amid DRS issue.
For McLaren’s Norris, he started F1 British GP from the third row and sixth on grid but that was where he finished eventually. It was a good result and some good points but he was a tad disappointed afterwards as he reckoned a poorly timed pit-stop cost him fifth place.
Norris pitted on Lap 34, two thirds race distance but when Esteban Ocon retired on Lap 39, out came the safety car and his teammate Fernando Alonso pitted, but McLaren decided to keep the Brit out for another lap which eventually cost them the place.
He was stuck behind Alonso for the rest of the grand prix in the train of cars led by Charles Leclerc. “I’m happy because P6 is a good result for us but should have been P5,” said Norris to media. “So put it like that I guess, chaotic race, very pleased to see Alex and Zhou getting out of the car first of all and from what I’ve heard they are all good, always very nice to see especially when you go to continue a race that everyone’s okay but also a scary thing to see in the middle of a race”.
“I had a tough start initially, the second start to the race was very strong and the pace was good, held Fernando behind and we made the wrong call with the pit stop, wrong strategy, lost a position so…apart from that, pace was good, drove a good race so a lot of positives just the one negative,” summed up Norris.
Team boss Andreas Seidl if anything when addressing the media sounded a touch downbeat but perked up when talking about Norris. “On Lando’s side I think it was a controlled race, was just trying to stay ahead of Fernando because that was our race which kind of worked out around the first pit stop so we could box a lap later and stay ahead,” he said to media including FormulaRapida.net.
“And then unfortunately, we lost a position to Fernando at the final safety car which cost us two points in the Constructors Championship. So overall, a lot more encouraging weekend that the last one because we were back in the fight in terms of pace with Alpine which was encouraging to see. Now we need to keep building on that and try to make another step in Austria next weekend,” summed up Seidl.
When pressed by FormulaRapida.net to expand on the strategy decision, Seidl kind of agreed with his driver over strategy regarding stopping after Alonso. “Yeah we didn’t stop Lando at the first opportunity obviously and Fernando being behind has the chance to do the opposite without losing a position but in the end that cost us a position something we will analyse after the race and see if we should have done anything different or could have done anything different to keep the position,” he said.
For teammate Ricciardo it was not such as good day, a lowly finish, he was affected by a DRS issue and lack of pace during his race as he revealed after the race. “Zero pace, to be honest a little bit like Barcelona where we didn’t seem to operate at the same level of grip as the cars around me so a little bit confused by that at the moment,” he said.
“It is clear what I felt but the reasons why I am not sure so hopefully we find some answers as it’s a quick turnaround to Austria. Other than that, as a positive I heard that the drivers are okay so that’s a big one so happy to hear, especially Zhou so that’s good,” summed up Ricciardo, as Seidl was defensive about his situation.
“Obviously we need to understand why he just did not have any pace, no chance to actually do anything then later in the race we had a DRS issue which compromised the race further but independent of that the race was pretty much done already in the first stint, just could not move forward which we need to understand together with Daniel,” he said.
“The DRS issue is something that came later in the race, as I said before we need to analyse now this weekend why it was simply not possible to extract a better performance from his side of the garage as a team. At the moment, we don’t have an explanation. We heard from Daniel after qualifying that he was simply struggling to extract the same performance from the car as Lando could do in qualifying and we need to see if he had similar issues in the race today or not,” summed up Seidl.
Here’s Lewis Hamilton passing Lando Norris: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-british-grand-prix-hamilton-overtakes-norris-to-grab-p4-at-silverstone.1737345027465458286.html