Norris thinks he could have played the podium at Silverstone
Lando Norris believes he would have been able to maintain his 3rd place at the British Grand Prix if his pit stop had gone better.
While virtually on the podium at the moment of entering the pit lane, Lando Norris lost time during his tire change and dropped a position, in favor of Valtteri Bottas. The British driver also came out behind Fernando Alonso, who had not yet stopped and couldn’t attack to try to regain his position.
« It seems long, yes. I don’t know how long it was, eight seconds or something like that? At that moment, all I needed was a good pit stop and I would have been ahead of Bottas. And then the worst part is that I came out behind Fernando, so I had to push really hard in the first lap.
« I destroyed my tires, which means that the whole stint was compromised just by pushing too hard in the first lap to try to regain something, so it was like a double loss,” explains Lando Norris to Motorsport.com.
The McLaren driver told our colleagues that he thought he would be able to keep his 3rd place if his pit stop had gone better.
« I would have liked to think so, yes (…). But in the end, knowing if we could have kept the third place is the question, because Mercedes was much faster in the second relay and, compared to everyone else, they somehow made a big step forward. »
« I don’t know what we could have done, but at least here in Silverstone, in front of the fans, I would have liked to have had the chance to fight. We kept them at bay, not easily but rather well in the first relay. We were never in the DRS zone. I would have had a chance, I think. I had the motivation of everyone around me to go for it and push for it,” he declared.
Despite a bad pit stop, which may have cost him his 4th podium of the season, Lando Norris does not blame his team and emphasizes the progress they have made this year.
The guys did a good job all season and made steady progress throughout the race, and the pit stops were getting better and better, and this is my first bad pit stop, I would say, of the whole season.
