Lando Norris says he was “praying” for a Safety Car to rescue McLaren’s one-stop gamble at the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, after fading from second to fifth in the closing laps.
Starting eighth, Norris was put on a one-stop strategy while most of the cars around him opted for two stops, and he cycled up to second in the later stages. On ageing hard tyres, though, he was being caught rapidly by the two-stopping Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, who passed him together at Turn 1 to push him off the podium.
Lewis Hamilton, another two-stopper, then came past to drop him to fifth. The Virtual Safety Car that could have handed Norris a cheaper stop for fresh tyres came only when Valtteri Bottas’s Cadillac broke down with five laps to go, too late to help.
“We tried, and we were not there on pace or anything, so we had to give it a shot,” Norris told media.
“If there was any VSC or a Safety Car, we were right in contention for a good podium, even P2 for a lot of it, so we were hoping, I was praying, but it never came.”
Norris said McLaren had debated pitting him when his hards began to fade, but chose to stay out.
“The team was debating whether to box onto different tyres or not, and I was hoping to have a better chance with the hard tyre, but it just degraded, so it was more: did we want to box and be safe and box onto another set of tyres, or did we want to stay out?
“We chose to stay out; there was no disagreement, and the team did a very good job on the strategy.”
Lando Norris “surprised” by pace in second half of the race
Norris, the reigning champion, said he had been surprised by how long he could hold off Verstappen, who had already stopped twice.
“I was just on way too old tyres, [Verstappen] had already done two pit stops, so I was still surprised that the pace was still very good at that point on the hard tyre compared to them,” he said.
“As soon as he had overtake [mode], and I had to use boost to defend, he was going to come past quite easily, so he did that.
“And as soon as I have traffic on old tyres, then it is game over, and it’s easy for everyone else. Clean air was saving me a lot, and obviously I managed to keep him behind for a few laps. But the degradation was starting to become too much on a hard tyre.”
“It was good fun. I felt like it was a nice battle,” Norris added. “In the end, it was just impossible to keep them behind, especially with how quick Charles was on the hard. He finished P2, so I had no chance, but we gave it a good shot.”
Despite the result, Norris insisted he had got everything out of the car.
“I feel like it was a good race, the pace was strong, and I feel like I got everything out of it, so I have to be happy, even though a P5 doesn’t sound amazing. There’s not much more we can do.”
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