Lando Norris says he did all in F1 Saudi Arabian GP to end up fourth, as Andrea Stella says Lewis Hamilton battle meant he couldn’t get to Charles Leclerc.
After the qualifying dip in F1 Saudi Arabian GP, McLaren’s Norris was left to do it all on a tricky circuit to make it on the podium. A win seemed unlikely considering the likes of Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen at the front, but a podium was certainly possible knowing the pace of his car.
Already at the start, Norris was up to eighth and cleared Carlos Sainz for seventh. He then picked up Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the pits but his pass on Lewis Hamilton didn’t come easy. The Brit came back on him, which hampered his progress in the fight against George Russell and Leclerc.
He managed to get Russell easy but by the time he got the back of Leclerc, it was already too late. The pace of Monegasque was too good for Norris to get through him. The Brit lost the points lead to Piastri, but he was pleased with the recovery drive after another bad Saturday.
“I think so, I mean, Charles was quick, I mean, the pace was very strong,” said Norris to media. “To finish 9 seconds off the lead was a little bit surprising, so showed our pace was pretty, yeah, very good. Mainly considering the clean air around here, it’s just, it’s a dream. Got a little stint when as soon as Charles boxed, my pace was very good. Of course, I was quite good in the lead.
“The clean air around here is beautiful. So I made the most of that, and Charles just did a very good first stint on the medium, and then didn’t have, I didn’t have a big tyre delta comparing to him, so nothing more. The drive was great by Charles. He was nice and quick as well, and clearly we didn’t have a lot of chances. If anything, he was a very strong, quick start, which means we had some work to do.
“Yeah, clearly, that was not an easy race. We looked good, we were probably the most consistent. But we’re not quicker than the rest. And because of my mistakes like yesterday and things like that, I paid the price and I made my life very tough for myself, so I’m happy enough. I was pushing as much as I could, I did everything. There’s no degradation here, you just push flat out.
“In a way, it’s quite a boring race because there’s no deg. It’s a flat out race from lap 1 to lap 3. It makes it physically tough. But no, I did everything I could, I pushed as much as I could. No big mistakes, so I was happy,” summed up Norris, as team boss Stella praised the work done by the Brit to recover positions for his championship fight. He pinned the podium loss to the battle with Hamilton.
That back and forth set him slightly back and Leclerc’s surprise pace limited his chance. “The short version is great recovery by Lando,” said Stella to media. “We had long discussions about the starting tyres. We elected to go on the hard tyres because we were hoping that, even if for a brief window, but we could have some possibility to exploit the pace of the car.
“On Friday, we saw that Lando was the fastest driver in terms of long run and race pace simulation, so we wanted to make sure that we were in conditions to exploit this. And in a way, this was a good decision by Lando and the strategy guys. It actually unfolded pretty much, when you do your simulations on paper, pretty much that was the case.
“But at the same time, I think for a podium finish today we would have needed not to lose the time with Hamilton. Obviously, Hamilton is Lewis Hamilton. He knows very well how to race and for a couple of laps he managed to pass Lando. And I think this cost us the time that ultimately means that we could not give it a go at trying to overtake Leclerc. At the same time, Leclerc and Ferrari were very fast.
“Well done to Ferrari on their first podium, very deserved, in a way, by the race pace that they exhibited especially at the end of the first stint. That was quite impressive, because we didn’t think that the medium tyres could behave like that. But in a way, he also gave us the confidence that the final stint of Lando would have been strong – and indeed it was strong.
“There was not much degradation. This allowed him to pass Russell. But ultimately, I think the time lost with Hamilton, and the fact that Leclerc had such a strong pace meant that we couldn’t recover to the podium. Yet, great recovery. Important points for the Championship and also, I think, important for Lando’s morale. He shows his race craft is absolutely brilliant.
“And like he said [over team radio] on the in lap, we just have to polish a little bit the Saturdays and we will have fun,” summed up Stella, who also had a praise for his team after the work undertaken on Saturday to fix Norris’ car after the incident.
“If you allow me, I go slightly off piste in answering your question, I also want to praise the work done by the mechanics, Charlie Hooper, who leads the operation in the garage, after qualifying accident,” continued Stella. “It wasn’t a hard accident, but actually we needed to change pretty much all the parts in the car except for the chassis and the power unit.
“There’s always a little bit of nervousness when you have to go through so many parts, change, check everything and once again the car was ready to go and this gave the opportunity to Lando to go and score important points. So well done to Charlie, well done to everyone involved and all the mechanics in making sure that the car was repaired and ready to go racing.”
Here’s battle between Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-norris-comes-out-on-top-in-battle-for-p6-with-hamilton.1829947725594876315
Here’s Max Verstappen, Oscar Piastri and co on Saudi Arabian GP
Here’s how F1 Saudi Arabian GP panned out
