Lando Norris was on course to win his first Formula One race in Spain before he was forced to retire.
Lando Norris is a British racing driver who has been competing in Formula One since 2016. He’s only 19 years old and was the youngest driver on the grid this year.
Lando Norris described the late call that lost him his maiden Formula One win at the Russian Grand Prix as “devastating.”
A rain storm left the Sochi race wide open, and Norris was four laps away from his maiden victory. In the dry, the McLaren driver had been holding off Lewis Hamilton, with the duo leading by more than 40 seconds.
After rejecting Mercedes’ initial request, Hamilton pitted, but Norris remained out, despite McLaren’s repeated pleas for him to come in for intermediates.
As Norris fought to maintain the vehicle on the racing course, it became clear that he had made the incorrect decision. He had fallen to ninth place by the time he tiptoed around the racing circuit and made it to the pits on the penultimate lap, but he was able to overtake Kimi Raikkonen on the last lap to finish seventh.
After the race, a clearly distraught Norris remarked, “Obviously unhappy… heartbroken in a sense.” “I suppose we made the decision to remain out, and we stand by that decision, which was, in the end, the incorrect one.”
After the Russian Grand Prix, Lando Norris congratulates Lewis Hamilton on his win. Getty Images/Dan Istitene/Formula 1/Formula 1
“I made the choice as much as the team, and I chose to remain out because they felt I should box.”
“I made the choice because I felt it was the best option.”
Norris had taken his maiden pole position in Formula One on Saturday and came agonizingly close to winning for the first time on Sunday. He stated he can concentrate on his performance up to the late race shower.
“Beforehand, I had the confidence. For a long time, I’ve felt capable of doing it, but there’s always a little sorrow.
“Even when things became tough, I felt like I done all I could.”
“Despite a few of errors, I was able to keep Lewis behind. It was absolutely OK for the tyres I was on during the laps I was out before Lewis boxed, and we were told the rain would be the same amount, but it clearly became a lot heavier than we as a team anticipated.”
When he came in for intermediate tyres on the final lap, Norris overshot the pit lane entrance and crossed the white line separating it from the circuit, he was handed a penalty after the race.
He had to drive back over the line to go to the pit lane, which would normally result in a time penalty, but the stewards opted on a reprimand under the circumstances.
“The stewards heard from the driver of Car 4 (Lando Norris) and a team representative, examined the video, radio, and telemetry data, and concluded that a rule violation had occurred,” the FIA said in a statement.
“This was not deemed to be a case of force majeure since it did not meet the criteria of force majeure set out in Article 20 of the FIA International Sporting Code.” The stewards took into consideration, however, that on the previous lap, Car 4’s driver had gone around Turn 17 (near the Pit Entry) at a reasonably high speed without losing control.
“The next lap, the conditions quickly worsened and varied in various sections of the course. The driver slowed significantly as he approached the pit entrance, about half his usual pit entry speed, but he still lost control and skidded over the painted space between the pit entry and the circuit.
“Although the driver clearly decided to stay out on the circuit on hard compound slick tyres when others switched to intermediates in order to gain an advantage in maintaining his race position, we do not believe the crossing of the painted area was deliberate or foreseeable under the circumstances.”
Lando Norris was devastated after he lost the chance of his first Formula One win at the Mexican Grand Prix. Reference: sergio perez.
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