The McLaren driver wasn’t able to secure an eventual third win of the season in Monza from pole. Norris lost the lead of the race on the first lap to his teammate Oscar Piastri, and Ferrari’s audacious one stop strategy eventually secured Charles Leclerc the top spot.
The Brit was left deeply unsatisfied by his performance of the day, as he commented during the post race press conference:
“Pretty disappointing. Yeah, which is obvious from the outside even. Charles drove a great race, honestly, hard to know if we could have done what he did today, but they deserved it. And, yeah, both Oscar and Charles drove a good race.
“So, disappointing, starting from pole and ending in third, especially when I think the pace was very strong. So, a shame, but that’s what it is,” he summed up.
Norris also talked about the pit strategy, which saw both him and teammate Piastri stop two times compared to the Ferrari driver’s winning single pit. He ultimately agreed with the call made by his team, as it was less risky compared to the call made by Leclerc, starting from fourth on the grid and thus allowed more margin of error:
“Well, we tried. We knew it was a quicker thing to do. But I think we just killed the tyres a little bit too easily. And like Oscar said, when you’re in third, it’s a much easier position to just try and risk and do such a thing. So, I don’t think we can be too disappointed, it was a lot riskier for us to try and do it than it was for Charles.
“He made it work. So, yeah, hats off to them and Ferrari and himself, because the driving part makes a big difference out there. We thought of it and we wanted to do it, but we just couldn’t today. It was clear yesterday we had a good qualifying car, but today our race car was probably not quite good enough,” highlighted the 24-year-old, comparing yesterday’s front row lockout to today’s 2-3.
Norris, second in the drivers’s standings with a 62 points gap from championship leader Max Verstappen, was also asked about his title fight and how much he believes in actually winning the 2024 F1 title.
“It’s the same answer every single weekend. I’m doing the best I can. The more points I gain, the better, but still eight races to go,” he sternly replied.
