Formula 1: A dejected Lando Norris was forced to wonder what could've been after he finished just two seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen, after the Brit had a slow start to the Spanish Grand Prix.
Almost three months ago, after Max Verstappen had won the Japanese Grand Prix at a canter with Red Bull Racing in one-two formation, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff made what he thought was a prophecy.“This season now is best of the rest. That’s the fact.”His proclamation came after round four of 24. Just six grands prix later and the first part of his prediction has already been proved wrong.The complexion of the season has changed.
The team scored points just five time between both drivers up to last year’s Austrian Grand Prix, leaving it languishing a sad sixth on the constructors title table with only 17 points.But then the team bolted to Norris’s car the first tranche of its B-spec upgrade package in Spielberg, and the rest is history.
Asked if he could have won from pole at the weekend, Norris’s response was as emphatic as it was forlorn.“I got a bad start, simple as that. The car was incredible today. I think we were for sure the quickest. I just lost it in the beginning.It all came down to the start. Norris got a good launch but then suffered minor wheel spin as he clicked into second gear. It cost him momentum to Verstappen, who barged through at the first turn.
While Verstappen and Red Bull Racing would undoubtedly prefer to be easily dominating the sport rather than defending against Norris’s late charges, they might ironically draw satisfaction from having to work so hard for their wins. In Canada the RB20 was arguably only the third-quickest car behind Mercedes and McLaren, but the Dutchman managed to win again an error-prone performance by Russell and a strategic mistake by McLaren in not pitting Norris behind the first safety car.
“Max is not making any mistakes, really,” Norris said. “I think as soon as you make one little mistake, they’re going to be ahead. “But Max needs to stop winning in order to achieve that. Even though I moved into second in the championship, that doesn’t matter. I couldn’t care if I was second or 10th; it’s more about the gap to what Max is, and he’s still extending it at the minute, and that’s something we can’t afford to do.There are two things in Norris’s favour in his pursuit of what would be an epic comeback.
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