Lando Norris explained that he was able to “relive” the achievements of his heroes by winning the Formula 1 British Grand Prix, which he described as “pretty special.”
The Brit overcame a third-place grid start and the changeable weather conditions at Silverstone, as well as benefitting from team-mate Oscar Piastri’s 10-second time penalty, to taste victory before a partisan crowd for the first time.
In doing so, Norris achieved back-to-back wins in the European double-header, having taken glory in Austria a week ago, reducing the gap to Piastri in the Drivers’ Championship to just eight points.
After the race, Norris told media including Motorsport Week that a home win enabled him to feel what some of the drivers he grew up watching do, including Lewis Hamilton, when he claimed his first Silverstone triumph in 2008.
“Where do I start?” he said. “I mean, eventful race, eventful race, I mean it means a huge amount.
“At the end of the day, being on top in your home race is very, very special.
“I said in some of the other interviews, this is where it all started for me, I was watching on TV, I was watching, you know, all those many years ago.
“Lewis, Jenson, Fernando… I think it was that extremely wet race year – 2007 or 8? – that’s when I really started watching Formula 1 and I think Lewis won and I got that picture of him going around and seeing all the fans standing up and that picture of what an atmosphere in Silverstone is like.
“And I dreamed of that for many, many years and today I got to relive that feeling myself and I see it through my own eyes, so pretty amazing, pretty special.
“A lot of people from my friends and family, my brother, my sisters, my mum, my dad, my dad’s parents, yeah, every person I could have here is here, so yeah, more special than ever, 100% and yeah, tough race to do it in as well.”
Norris underlines toughness of rain amid ‘patient’ waiting game
Norris underlined just how tough the conditions were, as the rain fell hard shortly after the start of the race, as some drivers made an incorrect call to pit for dry tyres at the end of the formation lap.
He also explained that he felt he made the wrong decision to play a waiting game and look after his tyres when Max Verstappen and Piastri were dicing for the lead.
“I mean I think as a team we did a very good job,” he said. “I think I was pretty happy with everything, I think we made the right calls at the right time, so yeah, probably we could have boxed for slicks a couple of laps before we did.
“But you know, the first part of the race Oscar and Max were fighting quite a lot and I was pretty patient, I didn’t push too much, I would try to look after my tyres a little bit more for some of the later stages when it started to rain again but it was probably the wrong thing to do, I probably should have just pushed because we went onto another set of Inters.
“And it’s just tough to not crash in these conditions, it sounds so obvious and easy and whatever, but you know the amount of moments you have at Turn 1, the aquaplaning in Turn 2, the aquaplaning in Turn 9, where Hadjar crashed, you don’t realise how close sometimes you are to crashing and it all being in the bin, in a matter of tenths, and there’s scary moments inside, but then they kind of excite you in a way and then you open your eyes, you concentrate again and yeah, it’s scary and thrilling at the same time.
“But there are some fun races, but they take a lot out of you in one single race, so a lot of decisions, but I think as a team we talked through things perfectly well and we kept calm through the whole thing and that paid dividends at the end.”
READ MORE – Lando Norris leads McLaren 1-2 in British GP, Nico Hulkenberg takes maiden F1 podium
