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Norris subdued after Brazil GP drop, he and Stella defend strategy

Lando Norris, F1, Andrea Stella

George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15, leads Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, Esteban Ocon, Alpine A524, Yuki Tsunoda, VCARB 01, Liam Lawson, VCARB 01, and the rest of the field at the start

Lando Norris was down after losing out in F1 Brazil GP from pole, as Andrea Stella defends the calls McLaren made in tricky conditions.

Having finished 1-2 in the sprint and then Norris taking pole in F1 Brazil GP, McLaren didn’t think they would end up sixth and eighth in the grand prix. And to add to that, nobody predicted Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to win and both the Alpine cars to be on the podium.

Such was the day in Brazil as rain made the most, where gamble by Verstappen and Alpine paid off. It all started when Norris lost the lead to George Russell at the start and was stuck behind the Mercedes driver in the first stint albeit comfortably ahead of the chasing pack.

However, the strategy call to pit undone his race as it put him not only behind Russell, but crucially he was behind Verstappen too. At the start, he lost out to Charles Leclerc along with teammate Oscar Piastri, but he couldn’t really recover.

Post-race, Norris made headlines when he talked about luck playing a larger role in Brazil rather than talent. “Yeah, you can change the tyres under the red flag, that’s what the others did,” he said to F1 TV. “Just unlucky. Unfortunate, sometimes it just goes your way, so nothing we did wrong.

“I don’t care what people say, staying out was not the right thing to do, it shouldn’t have been red flagged but obviously that was the crash in the end which caused the red. That’s life sometimes – you take a gamble, that has paid off for them. It’s not talent, it’s just luck.

“We were] a bit unlucky, that’s all. Yeah, I still made a couple of mistakes in the end. I had cars on my left and my right, I locked the rears, I went off, I lost two positions. A little bit unfortunate there, just my own fault, so not a perfect race for me.

“But I think no matter what, fourth was the best anyone could do today of the people who boxed and didn’t get lucky, and otherwise [we’ll] just keep our heads down,” summed up Norris. But when speaking to written media, he avoided the ‘talent’ part which made headlines in a negative way.

He defended the pit call as he felt, it was the right time to pit due to worn tyres. Also, he thought Russell was way quicker and should have won if there was no red flag stoppage. He put himself to finish third behind Verstappen, considering the Dutchman’s strong pace.

“Yes, a bit of wheelspin [at the start to lose to George],” said Norris to media. “The left side looked a bit better than the right, so. [It was] the right time to box, yeah, it was the right thing, so no regrets, just unlucky. It’s a silly rule that no one agrees with, but you’ll always agree with it when it benefits? So, yeah, every driver said that they don’t agree with it and they wanted it changed. It’s just unfortunate.

“But it’s the rule. You win some, you lose some, it benefited them today, so… well done to them. [It is] quite easy [to digest this result]. I did all I could today. That’s all. Max won the race. Good on him. Well done. It doesn’t change anything. No, I just locked the rears on the restart that was all [to lose places],” summed up Norris, who stated that their wing choice didn’t hurt him while admitting his own mistake as well.

“No, everything was fine, the wing was helping…we weren’t quick enough,” he continued. “Max was easily quicker than us. I think if he went from the front, he probably would have lapped us. Pace was good. I think similar to George, but the Red Bull was way faster.

“I mean, it’s been an up and down weekend for sure. Not a lot more I could do. I’m sure George probably feels like he [could have] won the race today. He deserved it more than anyone else. I’d probably have finished third realistically, so it’s tough, Max probably would have come through anyway and probably beaten us, but.

“Yes, just unlucky for us, but nothing more than that. I made a couple of mistakes, which I didn’t have to, and it cost me a couple of positions in the end,” summed up Norris. At the same time, McLaren team boss Stella defended the pit call made, while ruing the red flag timing.

He noted that both Norris and Piastri were struggling with their brakes, which they did all-weekend long. And that is something they will look into for the future races. Overall, the call was to finish the race and not take undue risks keeping the constructors’ championship in mind.

Race overall –

Stella: “I’d like to congratulate Max for one of his best victories of his career. It was very impressive from where he started. It was a great drive, and he had great pace because he moved up the field, and thanks to a brave decision under the red flag of not stopping and staying out on relatively worn tyres. This paid advantage for Max and the Alpines, and even Alpine deserve congratulations for their double podium finish. In terms of race itself, it was dominating in many episodes, I would say. Together with the episodes which we will cover, we also have to acknowledge that our today didn’t enjoy any particular pace advantage, we weren’t the fastest car out there on intermediate tyres like we were on dry tyres. So if anything there’s the first opportunity to look into and see how we can go faster with intermediate tyres. In terms of the episodes, for Lando, a loss of one position at the start, then we were faster than Russell but no way to overtake.

“Then at some stage when the rain started to increase, both drivers in fairness acknowledged that we needed new rubber to stay out in those conditions. The reason why this decision didn’t pay off is actually the rain became very intense, leading, together with the crash [of Colapinto], to a red flag. We thought at the time that with the Virtual Safety Car, and the increased amount of water on track, it was important to go on the new tyre. I think without the red flag, and with a little less intensity – which is always difficult to predict – it would have been quite difficult for the people that did not change the tyres. Sometimes you look brilliant because you commit to something, and it’s always easy to commit when you are behind, and you look like a hero.  I am here congratulating them for their decisions, but at the same time I back the decision that we made, because it came with the full agreement of the drivers, the pit wall, and also a little bit of reason as to ‘we need to make sure that we stay on track because we compete for points, we compete for both championships, and we need to finish races’.

“Personally I am not very comfortable to leave a car out there with tyres that are pretty worn with that amount of water. So without the red flag, we would be commenting on another race here. After that, Lando lost a couple of positions because of lock-ups. We struggled with these lock-ups all weekend in wet conditions with both drivers, and I think from a car point of view this is also something that we need to look into. For Oscar the race was, in a way, a little stuck in this seventh or eighth position. No way to overtake, and then we got the penalty – which was fair, deserved. We paid it at the end, and thankfully it only cost us one position. So that’s the summary of the day. Eventful, many episodes, some of the decisions didn’t pay off as we expected but we were also thinking they were quite sensible at the time.”

Message to drivers –

Stella: “First of all, I judge it with the fact that the message to both drivers was ‘Let’s finish the race’. We need to finish the race, because in races like this it’s easy to have a problem which actually takes you out of the race and is a DNF and is zero points. Considering what we are fighting for at the moment, this is what we wanted to avoid, and I want to praise the fact that both drivers achieved this objective. If I look at Lando himself, the main things to review are to do with his going off-track, which cost us positions. We did struggle with both drivers. Including qualifying – in Q3 Oscar didn’t score a very strong lap because he locked his last two attempts in Turn 1 – we did struggle with locking the tyres. So while we talk about drivers, I think we as a team have to acknowledge that we didn’t give the drivers easy material today to handle in these difficult conditions. So I’m sure the drivers will say ‘I could have done better here or there’.

“But also we as a team have to acknowledge that our car in these conditions was difficult, tricky, and sometimes just unpredictable. At the moment we take the positives from a championship points point of view, and definitely we take also several situations in which we could have done better. We have to look for instance at the start – did we start as good as we could? Did we have maybe too much wheelspin? Something to be seen, but like always we will review in a very constructive way, and while you focus on the opportunities I would also like to praise the positives of having finished the race, having finished with good points, we increase our gap to the runner-up in the Constructors’ Championship.”

Strategy –

Stella: “Lando had been already saying that we needed new tyres, the rain was increasing, and there was a VSC. So, I think these were perfect conditions to actually pit because you want to put your car in the best tyres for the next stint with more rain. You want to finish the race because you don’t want to aquaplaning on tyres that are getting relatively worn, and you have a VSC which means, you are going to execute this pit stop in the minimum amount of time, so for us it was…to be honest, a very sensible call. And like I said before, when you are behind, then you see those ahead of you have pitted, you can see it as an opportunity to take the lead by staying out, but you do have to rely on a red flag, otherwise you’ll be  in a difficult position when you re-start after the VSC with those worn tyres.”

Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-sao-paulo-grand-prix-verstappen-pounces-to-take-the-lead-from-ocon-on-the-safety-car-restart.1814723896147791486

Here’s how F1 Brazil GP panned out

Here’s how F1 Brazil GP sprint panned out

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