Lando Norris’s aggressive approach to battling the world champion, Max Verstappen, has received the backing of his McLaren team despite it likely costing the British driver a shot at victory at theMiami Grand Prix.
Norris started in second place behind Verstappen but was squeezed wide after trying to dive past the Red Bull through the turn one and two sequence, went off and dropped to sixth. The 25-year-old came back strongly passing Verstappen, with theMcLarenclearly having an enormous pace advantage over the Red Bull, to claim second place behind his teammate, Oscar Piastri, who took a dominant win from fourth on the grid. Both McLarens ultimately finished more than 30 seconds in front of the third-placed Mercedes of George Russell, with Verstappen in fourth.
McLaren’s team principal, Andrea Stella, admitted with hindsight that Norris might have backed off and bided his time to ease past Verstappen but it was far from clear in the opening corner of the first lap, that the McLaren would have such an advantage as it proved to.
“I quite like to see Lando aggressive, going for taking the lead of the race and sometimes it’s just the matter of a fraction of a second,” Stella said. “In this case Lando could have been a little bit more patient. With the benefit of hindsight it could have been better for Lando to just lift and make sure that he could keep the second position because the car was very fast and he would certainly have passed Max.”
The incident with Verstappen was adjudged fair, although Norris felt he had been pushed off by the Dutchman and noted pointedly he felt that Verstappen’s elbows-out approach had been expected and ultimately detrimental.
“He’s fighting hard, but it’s up to him to do that,” Norris said. “He’s ruining his own race, he’s not racing very smart. He’s fighting, that is always expected, but that’s what it is.”
Piastri now has four wins from six races this season to one for Norris and he leads his teammate by 16 points and Verstappen by 32. On the form of the McLaren in Miami, the championship battle is increasingly looking like it will develop into a straight fight between the two McLaren drivers.
A crucial element of the race was Piastri’s overtake of Verstappen for the lead but when Norris followed suit, it took him four laps including one pass at turn 11 where he had to give the place back because he had gone off track to complete the manoeuvre. During that period Piastri opened up an eight-second lead that Norris was unable to recover.
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With the two drivers likely going head to head for the title, Stella believed there were still only tiny margins that ultimately separated them. “Had Lando not gone off by a few centimetres in corner 11, he would have completed the overtaking in what was a similar time,” he said. “So we should not read too much into situations, it’s a matter sometimes of a fraction of a second or a fraction of a metre.
“The big time loss came because of having to give back the position. So in terms of overtaking, manoeuvring, precision and determination, I don’t see that there’s any difference between the two drivers.”