McLaren boss Andrea Stella has claimed that Lando Norris “could have been a little bit more patient” to avoid his compromised start to Formula 1‘s Miami Grand Prix.
Norris was made to rue a near-miss with Max Verstappen that cost him several positions on the opening lap as he came home behind Oscar Piastri in a McLaren 1-2.
The Briton was well-placed to end his team-mate’s win streak as he lined up on the front row alongside Verstappen, who had edged the lead McLaren to pole position.
But Norris experienced an instant setback when a wheel-to-wheel tussle with Verstappen through Turn 2 concluded with him being barged wide and dropping to sixth.
The recent flashpoint between the two had emanated from Verstappen locking up and going deep into Turn 1, an error that enabled Norris to cut back on the Red Bull.
With McLaren proceeding to possess a pace advantage over the competition, however, Stella has admitted that Norris might have been better biding his time.
“With the benefit of hindsight, let’s say that considering the situation in corner 1-2, it could have been better for Lando to just lift and make sure that he could keep the second position, because the car, again, with the benefit of hindsight, we see that it was very fast, and he would certainly have passed Max, like Oscar, and then later Lando was in condition to do,” Stella told media including Motorsport Week.
“So I think, like every situation in racing, you have to approach with the mindset of reviewing where the opportunities lie, and I think in this case, Lando could have been a little bit more patient.
“But I quite like to see Lando aggressive, going for taking the lead of the race, and sometimes it’s just a matter of a fraction of a second, and in this situation, the stewards elected that there was no need to intervene, but definitely the manoeuvre was quite at the limit.”
Stella ‘sees no differences’ between Piastri and Norris approach
Verstappen managed to repel Piastri’s advances up until Lap 14, by which point Norris had clawed back through to third place and could see his team-mate up ahead.
However, Norris’ win chances were soon dashed again as spending another four laps behind Verstappen saw him relinquish an unrecoverable nine seconds to Piastri.
Norris had seemed to complete the move on Verstappen one lap in advance at Turn 11 on Lap 17, but venturing outside track limits ensured he had to return the spot.
“Concerning the second overtaking, the lap time, or the race time, was lost because we needed to give back the position,” Stella explained.
“It was fair to give back the position, because with one overtaking, we exceeded the track limits, so there’s a few things that we need to improve.
Stella, though, has insisted it would be wrong to regard Piastri as being more clinical in racing combat than Norris based on how the two handled passing Verstappen.
“I think both drivers were approaching the overtaking in a way that had Lando not gone off by a few centimetres in corner 11, he would have completed the overtaking in what was a similar time,” the Italian highlighted.
“So I don’t think we should over-read too much into situations.
“I think it’s like I said before, it’s a matter sometimes of a fraction of a second or a fraction of a metre, and the big time loss came because of having to give back the position.
“So I think in terms of overtaking manoeuvre and precision and determination, I don’t see that there’s any difference between both drivers.”
READ MORE – Lando Norris: Max Verstappen ‘ruined his own race’ fighting me in Miami
Discussion about this post