Lando Norris says his car bottomed out on a bump in F1 Las Vegas GP crash as he was discharged from hospital after precautionary checks.
After a difficult qualifying in F1 Las Vegas GP for McLaren, they were looking to make up in the race from the back of the grid. Both Norris and Oscar Piastri made decent start but the Australian got ahead of the Brit when the Virtual Safety Car was deployed.
The re-start thought caught Norris out. He hit a bump on the approach to Turn 12 and lost control to hit the barrier on the side to go straight in the run-off. The medical car drove to him due to the impact and G-forces involved in the incident.
He was taken to the medical center and to the local hospital for precautionary checks. Norris returned to the track and even took part in the debriefs where Piastri finished 10th. The Brit noted about the bottoming moment as he thanked the medical services.
“An unfortunate end to our Las Vegas GP weekend,” said Norris. “I just bottomed out on the restart, lost the rear and hit the wall. Not the way we wanted the weekend to end, especially considering the pace looked promising on Oscar’s side. Big thanks go to the medical staff for checking me over, and to the team for the work they’ll now put in on the car.
“One week to reset and go again for the season finale in Abu Dhabi,” summed up Norris, as team boss Andrea Stella reckoned that cold tyres after re-start and the bump surprised him eventually as the grip levels were low in the starting phase.
“There’s a bump in that place,” said Stella. “And you can see all cars sparkle when they go through this bump. I think the combination of the bump and the cold tyres might have surprised him. In fairness, it’s the same bump for everyone, so it just depends on your speed, the condition of your tyres, potentially how your car is positioned there, how close you are to the car ahead.
“There are multiple factors. Maybe Lando made a kind of assumption that there was enough grip. But it’s very tricky, I’m sure all drivers will comment that. That’s something that needs to be fixed,” summed up Stella, as he elaborated and insisted on the bump to be fixed for next year.
“I think that bump, if we carry on racing at nighttime, should be fixed, because the tyres will always be cold, low grip and it becomes a very tricky corner,” he continued. “Already during the weekend, we saw cases of oversteer in that place. So independently of the timetable, we would strongly recommend that this bump is smoothened out.”
Here’s Lando Norris crashing out: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-las-vegas-grand-prix-norris-crashes-out-on-lap-3-to-trigger-the-safety-car.1782973190335519092.html
Here’s how F1 Las Vegas GP panned out
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