Lando Norris played a smart game in F1 Azerbaijan GP to fourth and was surprised to finish ahead of Max Verstappen, as Andrea Stella had praise for him.
After he was knocked out in Q1 of F1 Azerbaijan GP, it looked like a good opportunity for Red Bull’s Verstappen to take advantage of the situation. But despite the Dutchman’s Top 10 finish, he wasn’t able to take any advantage of the situation.
On the flip side, Norris made a good start on the hard compound and was already up to 10th within few laps of racing. Post that, he had to just maintain his position but he was unable to clear Williams’ Alexander Albon, which cost him time.
Once in free air, he was able to pull out a good gap which put him in the fight against Verstappen, even though he lost out to Mercedes’ George Russell and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz by then. “I don’t think we could have asked for a lot more,” said Norris to media.
“A good start, good strategy. I mean, I would have loved to have got past Alex a bit earlier. He made my life tough. I couldn’t pass, so I don’t think I could have asked for more. It was definitely better than before the weekend, fourth was a great result, to be ahead of Max just on merit from pace and strategy, was a good result.
“The car was flying, which almost made me more annoyed about yesterday and how silly that yellow flag was. We would have been happy with eighth, as we just expected the top four teams to go with me being the eighth car, so we expected them to beat everyone else. But I got to 10th very quickly, I was probably 10th in 5-6 laps of the race.
“As I said, I had a good start, good opening lap, even on the hard tyre and everyone else on the medium around. That was a good kick start for the whole day and then I got behind Alex, I couldn’t a lot, Carlos got past, I fought Max for a little bit and Max just overheated his tyres after few laps behind me. I could race against him and then Alex boxed.
“As soon as Alex boxed, I think my pace was the best on track, even on the hards from the beginning of the race, and I managed to create a good gap and just unlock all the potential that the car had. Eighth was our target but we knew with the hard tyre start, and if things went well, better was possible but it is hard to anticipate on how it was going to be.”
As noted above, Norris was quite surprised to fight against Verstappen and even beat him in the end to cut his lead by three points. More so, the Brit was pleased to have held off Sergio Perez, which enabled Oscar Piastri to push and secure the F1 race win.
Post race, the Brit laid a little information on the radio as well – in mind games battle – about the Dutchman passing cars under Virtual Safety Car. Verstappen, along with Nico Hulkenberg, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, were let off with a warning.
“I am a little bit surprised, when you start 15th, I didn’t really expect to beat him, especially because they all boxed and were behind me,” said Norris. “So, I was about 20-22 seconds behind on real terms where they were. But to create a gap ahead of him and then to box and to still overtake him.
“I wasn’t expecting that probably to do such a thing. But that was with Max. I could defend against Max because he spent six laps trying to catch up, I knew his tyres were starting to get to a point when they are too hot and you can’t attack anymore. So, I played the game well and I knew I couldn’t have defend against Carlos.
“But I could defend against Max but the main point was I defended against Checo and just allowed him to not get ahead of Oscar, that pretty much allowed us to go and get a win. I did my small part for the team which I am happy for because it got us P1 in the constructors’ and that is what make me happy.”
There was natural praise from McLaren team boss Stella too. Having credited him 50% for Piastri’s win, the Italian reflected on the mindset of Norris especially after what happened on Saturday when a brief yellow flag disrupted his session.
Like Norris, he didn’t expect a fourth place finish when eighth was the maximum that was thought about but it was perfect execution from the team and the driver. “I think when we talk about Lando, first of all I would like to praise his reaction after qualifying,” said Stella to media after the grand prix.
“The team was slightly frustrated and bit disappointed than he was, like when I met him after qualifying, he was like ‘it happens, like there was a yellow flag and I felt I needed to stop or abort the lap because I didn’t know if I was to qualify in terms of the yellow flag and then I realised that it was only Ocon, a shame’, we accept it, ‘okay mate, we are in a mission now’.
“I just like to praise his mindset, sometimes we talked about Lando being self-critical and whatever but now he was very determined driver that was set for a mission in the race. Personally, I was not….while I was always optimistic, I thought that a mission that would led us to fourth at the end was a little too optimistic. Obviously, we needed the help of couple of drivers that crashed, otherwise, we would have been sixth, but I would have never said that he would beat Verstappen on track.
“I think the race came to Lando because he stayed calm even in the early stages, because we knew that to complete more than 30 laps with hard, it was not obvious because the hard could grain and if you grain too early because we try too hard to overtake, then it is going to be a long and difficult stint to get to the time to fit the medium.
“He stayed calm, he executed overtaking at the right time and then at the end, the tyres were still good after a point when we called Lando for medium, he said like ‘are you sure? Because the tyres are still good’, but we told that we needed to give him enough laps to attack Verstappen.
“And even in this case, I think he drove very well to keep the medium tyres below the graining level, so that they were good enough to overtake Max at the end. I think it was absolutely brilliant execution from Lando’s point of view. I can’t see any point during the 51 laps in which Lando could have done a better job.”
Here’s Lando Norris passing Max Verstappen: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-azerbaijan-grand-prix-norris-powers-past-championship-rival-verstappen-for-p6.1810269695517780376
Here’s Andrea Stella crediting Lando Norris for Oscar Piastri’s win
Here’s how F1 Azerbaijan GP panned out
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