After crossing the line in sixth before being promoted to fifth following George Russell’s penalty, McLaren’s Lando Norris commented that he needed a “reset” to get things right moving forward after the summer break.
The 24-year-old bizarrely drove into the gravel at the start on Sunday after bottoming out on the kerb. Teammate Oscar Piastri had left him plenty of space.
He dropped three spots to P7, ending his chance of winning the race. Norris eventually ended up behind Verstappen until the flag as he was undercut at the first round of stops.
Team boss Andrea Stella downplayed his driver’s statement, while acknowledged the improvements he can make.
“These kinds of situations are always very, very marginal.
“Lando got a bit distracted from what was happening on the inside, and ran out of track, it’s a marginal thing. It requires little adjustments here and there.“
Stella assured that McLaren would continue to help Norris as they did with teammate Oscar Piastri. The Grands Prix that takes place after the break will be paramount for McLaren to have both drivers capable of extracting their potential and collaborating with one another if they wish to contend for the Drivers’ Championship, alongside the Constructors’.
Over the past couple of weeks, Norris has been criticised for his poor race starts which cost him dearly in Hungary and Spa.
Stella confirmed the team would not be leaving the Brit alone during the break, instead they will work with him to improve.
“We work with Lando, like we work with Oscar [Piastri], to see all the opportunities in which we can improve individually but also collaborate better to either be more prepared or to use better our abilities and talents.
“I think it doesn’t necessarily change our attitude but [it] definitely gives us some elements to analyse as to how some of these missed opportunities manifest themselves.”
“For Lando, for instance, it looks like there are statistically some opportunities that tend to happen in the early stages of the race. So we need to check whether this is the early stages of the race for a reason, or is it just random.
“But like any other athlete, or any other driver, I think Lando himself will learn, with the team, what he can do better to make sure we capitalise on the good work we are doing.
“I think he was in a good starting position still, but then once we lost the position at the start with this low deg and difficult overtaking, we definitely made our life difficult.”
