Lando Norris, the British McLaren driver who has been giving Max Verstappen a run for his money in recent weeks, had a disappointing Saturday in qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix.
Falling well short of expectations, Norris qualified in a dismal 18th place, in stark contrast to his recent performances. McLaren’s strategy error added another layer of complexity to an already frustrating session, but Norris took full responsibility for the poor showing.
The risky strategy
The Woking-based McLaren team decided to send Norris and his team-mate Oscar Piastri out on medium tyres to start the session, a bold move aimed at saving a set of softs for later in the session. The decision wasn’t unique to McLaren, with Ferrari and Mercedes also opting for the yellow-walled medium tyres.
However, McLaren were the only team to change course mid-session and call their drivers back to switch to the soft compound without having set a lap time.
The clock ticks down
The late change meant that both drivers had little time to put in a qualifying lap that would get them into Q2. Piastri managed to get through without too much difficulty, but Norris had his work cut out. His first lap on the soft tyres was compromised by an error in the second sector, and his final attempt was thwarted when Fernando Alonso spun his Aston Martin, bringing out the yellow flags.
No blame game
Despite the obvious confusion and the last-minute change of strategy, Norris refused to point the finger at anyone but himself.
“I was told to pit for some reason, [but] the pace was good,” said Norris after the session, referring to the call for a tyre change.
“Obviously something wasn’t right, but that wasn’t a problem. I just made some mistakes in the one lap I had. Obviously, there was a yellow from Fernando at the end…”
READ MORE: Audi abandon F1 & quits?
Mixed feelings for Piastri
In contrast to Norris, rookie Oscar Piastri had a comparatively better qualifying session, qualifying not only for Q2 but also for the final part of the qualifying session. Piastri finished seventh, but felt there was untapped potential.
“The pace looked good early on, we had a decent Q1, a decent Q2, we just struggled with grip in Q3 for some reason,” said Piastri.
“It just didn’t come together in Q3 and I don’t really know why. That’s probably the most frustrating part at the moment!”
F1 Sprint weekends set for revision after latest “flop”
With the stark difference in fortunes between the two drivers, and a strategy that clearly backfired, McLaren are likely to reflect on what went wrong. But Norris has already set the tone by taking personal responsibility for his performance, even when there were variables beyond his control.
It’ll will be interesting to see how they bounce back on Sunday.
Hamilton now a marketing sell out not a diversity campaigner
MORE F1 NEWS: Hamilton’s accusations prove to be irrelevant
Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from his second place finish at the 2023 US Grand Prix in Austin Texas. The FIA technical delegates reported his car to the stewards for excessive wear of the plank under the floor which monitors ride height.
As it is with pit lane speeding, thee things are4 usually cut and dry and the plank underneath car number 44 was indeed outside the minimum allowed thickness which proved Mercedes had…READ MORE ON THIS STORY
