MONTMELÓ, Spain — Just 24 hours after what he described as the best lap of his career, pole sitter Lando Norris saw the Spanish Grand Prix slip through his fingers at the start of the race.
“I’ve started,” said McLaren’s losing Norris after finishing more than two seconds behind Formula One world championship leader Max Verstappen. Norris’ hard work from Saturday afternoon was undone on the 579 meter run down to Turn 1 at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Despite being aggressive off the line and forcing the eventual race winner to the grass, Norris still found himself behind as they entered the first corner. Crucially, George Russell also found a way around both of them outside; when Verstappen passed Russell a few laps later, Norris had to wait until the first round of pit stops to jump on the Mercedes, a delay that was a decisive blow to his hopes of winning the race.
When asked to assess the race in the post-race press conference, Norris said that initially the only negatives he could aim for.
“It’s not good enough, just because we have to win today,” he said. “I think I have the fastest car, but I just lost at the start, then I couldn’t pass George for the first task. I think it’s easy to have the best car now, I just didn’t do a good enough job from the line, then that one thing cost me entire.
“From Turn 2 on, 10 out of 10, I don’t think I could have done more and I think as a team, we did a perfect strategy. I’m very happy with what we did, but yes, one part. from the start, 1% no pretty good.”
Spain 2024 may not be as dramatic as the other “what could have been” moments in Norris’ career, when McLaren’s misjudgment of rain at the end of the 2021 Russian Grand Prix saw him take victory, but it will be short lived. when. However, it didn’t take long for the papaya-hued team to overcome it.
This is because we now have enough evidence to show that Red Bull’s performance gap from the start of 2024 has evaporated. McLaren looks like a regular challenger now – some might even suggest they have made progress – while Mercedes built on their good work in Canada with a strong third and fourth with Lewis Hamilton and Russell.
Compared to the start of the season, when Verstappen seemed unstoppable, the energy around F1 has been different since Norris’ first victory at the Miami Grand Prix in early May. However, Verstappen can still increase his championship lead, which is now 69 points ahead of Norris, who is second.
“Max doesn’t make mistakes, so if you make a little mistake, he’s going to step up,” Norris said. Russell discovered that it happened in Montreal two weeks ago.
Verstappen’s lead is, in fact, a two-and-a-half-race lead over Norris, and it may seem unassailable on paper, but a win for Norris on Sunday will be a major statement over the remaining 14 races of the season and the real threat the McLaren MCL38 now poses to the RB20 Red The untouchable bull.
The recent changes in the competitive order have clearly made Norris think about being a bet outside the championship, but he knows that can only happen if he eliminates his mistakes – however small.
Asked if he could challenge for the title, Norris said: “I mean, I think, I think … I have to do better today. We have to get some more points on Max. Potentially there is a chance to beat him. In Canada, it’s two I finished the race second and he won But Max had to stop winning to get it.
“Even if I’ve moved to second in the championship, it doesn’t matter, I don’t care if I’m second or tenth. It’s more about the gap to what Max is, and he’s still beyond that.
“It’s something that we can’t do or we can’t let him run this season… If only I had made better decisions in Canada, and if I had had a better start. Today, we would have won two races, I know there is always a lot to do, but we have to get it all done.
Norris has always been tough in tough times, and listening to him on Sunday afternoon, it’s easy to forget he’s done it twice. It just shows you how quickly moods and expectations have shifted at McLaren.
Team boss Andreas Stella said Norris’s downbeat reaction to finish second should be music to the ears of F1 fans who want to see a real fight this year.
“You know the fact that Lando is critical of himself, and sometimes we react too much to ourselves than to the content,” said Stella. “We didn’t overreact to Lando’s tough style, of course I’m sure this is something that will continue to be fine-tuned over the year. But from Lando’s point of view, he drove very well all weekend, and if he was upset for P2, he finished two seconds from Max , then this is great news for everyone, including Formula One, because it means we have a race and with small details, like defending your pole position, we can have a different winner than Max.”
Verstappen continues to get the job done
Of course, there is a reason why Verstappen has a healthy championship lead. The hallmark of a great champion in any sport is the ability to claim victory when not performing well. While the first four wins of 2024 are routine, there is an argument to be made that Verstappen’s past three wins have come when he has not had the fastest car.
At Imola, Norris finished 0.2 seconds behind Verstappen but was faster for most of the race. A mistake from Russell and the safety car when Norris had a healthy lead then helped Verstappen claim victory at the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks ago. At this time, Norris is a sluggish escape that swings the pendulum the way Red Bull drivers.
On all three occasions, Verstappen has made his rivals pay for their lack of perfection. The three-time world champion continues to roll, and the high bar he sets each week is easy to overlook when drivers win so often, including in the record-breaking 2023 season.
“He is fantastic under pressure,” Red Bull boss Christian Horner said on Sunday evening. “Last year was the year of the unicorn and now it’s a more normal year, it’s not normal to win all the races all the time and we have to fight very hard for them, and Max made the main difference. We know where we need to improve, we get the understanding which is better in terms of strengths and weaknesses, and now it is enough to continue to increase the lead of the championship.
Verstappen also knows that regular wins in early 2024 are a thing of the past. On Sunday, he urged Red Bull to step up their game to match the new threat of Norris McLaren’s team if they are to increase their points gap.
“I always knew it was going to be close and McLaren just did a fantastic job,” said Verstappen. “They’ve brought a lot of great updates to the car and it really just works.
“From our side, we have brought things to the car, but maybe not as many lap times as others have brought to the car. So now we have to find more, try to find another little jump because I think clearly today, we don’t have a fast pace when we can’t keep the tires like Lando we have to do better in this regard.”
Norris will have an immediate opportunity to make amends. Spain is the first leg of a tripleheader over three consecutive weekends, with Red Bull’s home race in Austria followed by the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.