After having his prospects for Sunday compromised after qualifying 15th (after being promoted following Lewis Hamilton’s pit lane start), McLaren’s Lando Norris is thrilled to secure a fourth-place finish in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and most importantly ahead of championship rival Max Verstappen.
“I don’t think we could have asked for a lot more today. I had a good start, [and a] good strategy.
“I mean, I would have loved to have got past Alex [Albon] a bit earlier. He made my life tough. But yeah, I don’t think, I couldn’t ask. So I don’t think I could have asked for a lot more. It’s definitely better than we were all expecting before the weekend, before today.“
To finish ahead of Verstappen is crucial for Norris to maintain his bid to contend for the drivers’ champion of 2024. Despite besting the Dutchman on pure merit and surpassing the team’s projected finish of eighth, the race brought mixed feelings for the Briton.
“So, yeah, fourth was a great result to be ahead of Max, just on merit and from pace and strategy, again, was a good result.
“The car was flying, which, because it was so good, almost made me more annoyed about yesterday and how silly that yellow flag was.
“We would have been happy with eighth. Like, we just expected the top four teams to go. Obviously, me being the eighth car. So, we expected them to go and beat everyone else.
“But I got into tenth, I think, quite quickly, I think [after] five, six laps into the race. I had a good start, a good opening lap, even on the hard tyre and everyone else on the medium. So, that’s a good kickstart to the whole day.“
The high-flying Norris soon finds himself battling against best friends Albon in the Williams and Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari and duelling with his championship rival.
“Then I got behind Alex. I couldn’t do a lot. Carlos got passed. I fought Max for a little bit and Max just got stuck behind me for a few laps and overheated his tyres. I actually could race against him and Alex boxed and then this made my race.“
After Albon pitted, Norris enjoyed the pace of his MCL38 despite starting on the less-grippy hard tyres. The eighth place that the team discussed during the briefing was the target, but to achieve better is possible.
“As soon as Alex boxed, my pace was, I think, the best on track, even on the hards from the beginning of the race. I managed to create a good gap and just unlock all the potential that the car had. So, yeah, eighth was our target, but we knew we were doing a hard start, and if things went well, better was possible.
“But it’s hard to anticipate it and know what that was going to be. I had to open my gap to Alonso, so I had to open the pit stop window. Of course, you may be hoping for a little safety car or a VSC. That’s also something you’re thinking of.
“Also, the [final stint on the] medium was not a guarantee easy, drive to the end.“
At one point in the race, the 24-year-old was struggling with graining but quickly found footing again after figuring when he can push.
“I think we opened up the graining and a bit like Charles [Leclerc] last weekend, you open up the graining, it feels a bit shit, but you drive through it and you wear through it a little bit and eventually it starts to clear up and you get to that point when it actually starts to come back to you.
“All my comments were like, I was actually struggling and Alex managed to pull away a little bit, but then I got to that phase where I was like, okay, now I can push again.“
The difficult nature of the Baku City Circuit limited the drivers’ opportunity to overtake, save from the long straights at the finish line and between turns 2 and 3. Norris isn’t exempted from this and endured the same issue despite being one of the best cars.
“I started to catch up and I still couldn’t overtake. It was just too difficult to overtake, but as soon as he got out of the way, then I pushed a second lap quicker pretty much immediately. Even a second lap quicker than Alex was not enough to get past him, which shows how difficult it was to overtake today.“
Norris also played a supporting role to his teammate Oscar Piastri who was contending for the victory from the Red Bull of Sergio Pérez when the former pitted. Even then, Norris was not expecting that he would be able to catch Verstappen despite starting way back.
“I mean, [I’m] a little bit surprised when you started 15th, I didn’t really expect to beat him, especially because they were boxed and were behind me.
“So I was about 22 seconds behind on real terms where they were. So to create a gap ahead of him and then to box and to still overtake him, I wasn’t expecting probably to do such a thing. But that was with Max and I could defend against Max because he spent like six laps trying to catch up.“
Norris picked his battle carefully and let Sainz by after figuring out that he could not defend the charging Ferrari. Defending Verstappen was possible, however.
“A few laps behind when the Ferrari was behind. So I knew his tyres were getting to a point where they were too hot and he couldn’t attack me anymore. So I played the game well and I knew who I could.
“I couldn’t defend against Carlos, but I could defend against Max. But the main point was I defended against Checo [Pérez] and just allowed him to not get ahead of Oscar. And then that pretty much allowed Oscar to go and get a win.
“So I did my small part for the team, which I’m very happy for because he won in the constructors and that’s pretty much the thing that makes me the happiest.“
The combined results from Norris and Piastri in Azerbaijan allowed McLaren to overtake Red Bull for the lead in the Constructors’ Championship.
