Portuguese Grand Prix – McLaren consolidates third place
Another solid race for Lando Norris, who climbed back into the top 5, while Daniel Ricciardo limited the damage after his disastrous qualifying yesterday.
McLaren is positioning itself more and more as the third force on the grid. Especially Lando Norris is showing exemplary consistency: fourth in Bahrain, third in Imola, the British driver delivers another very impressive performance, finishing fifth.
This new good result, which allows him to consolidate his third place in the Drivers’ championship, is all the more satisfying as he had to fight on the track to regain positions since he had not done better than seventh yesterday: It was a solid race from the whole team and a well executed strategy. I passed the people I had to overtake in the first laps at the start, then at the restart and finally at the pit stops.
However, he was the author of a new radio outburst, a skill he has mastered, when his engineer asked him if he could go even faster. He then replied curtly that he was already doing his best. Especially since he was 40 seconds behind the drivers ahead of him: « We scored some good points. We couldn’t have done better than fifth. So I am very happy.”
Ricciardo: I was able to release some of my anger from yesterday
If the young driver keeps up the momentum, big questions were being raised on the other side of the garage after Daniel Ricciardo’s catastrophic 16th place this Saturday. The Australian had to make up for it so as not to be completely overshadowed by his teammate. At the end of a solid race, the Honey Badger could show a smile of satisfaction: Today is clearly a better day. I was able to do what I wanted, overtake cars, have nice battles, and get rid of some of yesterday’s anger. So that was a good thing. I think we had some really positive moments in the race. Having raced again allows me to provide more technical feedback to the team.
However, not everything is rosy at the Papayas as the new recruit ultimately finishes in ninth place, which only brings in two points. He is well aware that there is still work to be done in order to justify his astronomical salary:« Some things still limit me in terms of what I want to do with the car. Every time I try, it doesn’t work completely. So I think there are things that can be fixed immediately through adjustments, and later with new improvements. »
He hopes to continue on his momentum the following weekend in Barcelona. This time, the qualifying will have to be much better in order to hope for scoring big points.
