Having started the race from pole position, Lando Norris only managed to cross the finish line of the F1 Belgian GP in second place behind his teammate. As Piastri was victorious, the Australian’s lead in the championship over Norris has extended to 16 points.
Speaking after the race, Norris reacted to the weekend overall and why his teammate’s pace was quicker than his own for most of it.
Norris no match for his teammate’s pace
Despite a slower start to the weekend, Norris achieved pole position for Sunday’s race. Although starting from the front of the grid, Norris was unable to maintain his lead and was soon overtaken by his teammate.
Both the sprint and main races of the Belgian GP were won from second on the grid. When asked about this, Norris explained that Piastri had a better start than him which soon led to the overtake.
“It’s hard. I didn’t have the best Turn 1, so hard to know how much that played a part. At the same time, Oscar came past me pretty easily. So even if I had a better Turn 1, his run and the slipstream probably still would have got me.”
Norris then went on to say how he needs to review his mistakes in the opening laps of the race to gain a better understanding of why he lost the lead.
“Not too disappointed. Of course disappointed to finish second. When you saw Saturday and you saw today, then P1 didn’t look the best place to begin with. I also didn’t get the best Turn 1, so I need to look at what I could have done better.”
After Piastri’s overtake, Norris spoke over the radio with his engineer about a possible issue with his battery deployment which was affecting his speed. After the race, when asked whether this played a factor in Piastri’s overtake, Norris was unsure.
“I need to look at it with the team. I don’t know.”
Unable to challenge despite tyre advantage
As the track began to dry up, drivers peeled into the pits to get rid of their wet weather tyres. As Piastri had already overtaken Norris, the Australian received priority for the pit stops. Norris had to wait an extra lap to change his tyres.
While the rest of the field all chose mediums, Norris was the only driver initially on the hard compound tyres. The British driver explained this decision, particularly whether Piastri’s choice of the mediums influenced this.
“Will said, do I want the hard tyre? And I said ‘yes’. That was about it. I didn’t even know Oscar was on the medium, to be honest with you. That didn’t influence my decision.”
The medium tyres began to degrade quicker than the teams had expected. This put Norris at an unexpected advantage. Though he initially struggled with the warm up of these tyres, Norris had more grip than Piastri towards the end of the Belgian GP.
“I thought the hard tyre would be a slightly better tyre to the end, a bit trickier to get warmed up and the opening laps maybe would be a little bit more of a struggle, which I think it was. The last few laps, I had the advantage in terms of grip, but it was not a great pit stop, I was the second one to stop.”
Norris spent the closing stages of the Belgian GP catching up to his teammate. The combination of a handful of mistakes on track and having to pit a lap later than his teammate ultimately meant that Norris could not challenge his teammate for the victory.
“I think I lost eight, nine seconds just by being the second car to box. To catch Oscar from that gap is quite an achievement. I gave it a good shot, but just not close enough.”
Big impact of a late pit stop
Norris was asked whether the team had considered double stacking their drivers instead of delaying his stop. The British driver explained that the pit stops were a last minute decision, and that this may be the reason that double stacking was not an option.
“I need to ask the team. It’s tough because you’re going to lose quite a good chunk of time doing that as well. Considering the slick tyre was so much better by that point… like Oscar said, it was a late call for us to box on that lap.”
Reflecting on the pit stop decisions for the F1 Belgian GP, Norris expressed the need to review all the strategy decisions for the race.
“I think if we review it, we probably would have kicked ourselves a little bit for staying out as long as we did. I think there was enough evidence that we should have boxed early, but no one boxed that early.
“It was just Lewis that boxed one lap earlier than us. It was just more painful for me that Oscar got the good lap. I had to go one lap longer. That’s life.”
