Lando Norris hoping that there will be no repeats of brake issue that almost cost him podium finish.

Just one more lap and George Russell would have almost certainly passed the ailing McLaren, as a brake issue that developed in the final stages of the race worsened.

As the messages from his team became ever more urgent, rather than turn up the heat on his McLaren teammate, Norris had to ease off and concentrate on watching Russell in his mirrors. At the flag the Briton was just 1.349s ahead of the Mercedes.

"I think they started to go quite early," said Norris. "But, you know, you always get a bit of a tendency for the brakes to get a tiny bit longer.

"I think the team were hiding it from me because they saw the problem starting a lot earlier and they knew it was going to be a problem," he revealed.

"The last ten laps, I was pretty nervous about just being able to finish the race because it was noticeable how much worse it was getting every single lap and every braking zone.

"It's really not a nice feeling when you're in the car and you expect a nice solid pedal and there's just nothing and it goes to the floor," he admitted. "It doesn't fill you with confidence, especially on a fast track like this. So we were lucky simply to finish the race and to finish ahead of George. We were very lucky.

"I think the last couple laps were three or four seconds or more off. So we had a difficult ending and I would have loved to have pushed a little bit more and tried to give Oscar a bit of a run, but not today.

"So something we need to understand and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Asked if he fears a repeat of the issue, he laughed: "I really hope not!

"No, no expectation of it," he continued. "I think it was an issue that happened that shouldn't have happened, basically. I think it was rapidly getting worse, probably quicker than the team were anticipating when they saw it.

"They saw it quite a bit earlier, just after the halfway point of the race, but then it was accelerating in deterioration.

"So whatever it was, I'm not sure, but it got critical in the last five laps.

"So I think it's a problem that shouldn't happen, basically. And I'm sure they'll try and understand it and make sure it doesn't happen again."

At Mercedes, Toto Wolff praised Russell for his "faultless" drive.

"The word solid doesn't give it any justice because he just drove a race that was faultless," the Austrian told Viaplay. "He extracted the max from the car and the tyres. For me that was a 10 out of 10 drive."

Admitting that "a podium is a realistic best-case based on the terms" due to the strength of the competition, Wolff said: "It was not only the McLarens, but Max you can never discount, and the Ferrari so it's good.

"The ambition is to win," he added, "but we don't feel any entitlement at the moment. We're not yet good enough, we're second in the championship."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Shanghai here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 21 hours ago

"@ Ricardo-sanchez.....You may well be right but I didn't say it! There's an old saying, 'forewarned is forearmed' and I would've thought that any degradation in braking efficiency, no matter how trivial,would be immediately communicated to the driver. How about Helmut's on the phone for you and wants to set up an urgent meeting?"

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2. Posted by Ricardo_sanchez, 24/03/2025 21:00

"@kenji – I think you may be taking Norris’s “the team were hiding it from me” comment a bit too literally. It’s unlikely McLaren would conceal a serious brake fault in any reckless sense. More plausibly, they were managing how much detail they gave him during the race to avoid distracting or panicking him.

Let’s be honest — the only thing an F1 driver wants to hear less than “your brakes are failing” is “Helmut is doing your performance review”. "

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3. Posted by ffracer, 24/03/2025 20:19

"Uuugh Google... I meant downforce not downloaded. Apologies. "

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4. Posted by ffracer, 24/03/2025 20:17

"Unbelievable drive by Lando Norris, reaching 330 kph and the brake pedal to the floor... even with all the downloaded slowing the car down, it was an amazing drive. Well done LN4!"

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5. Posted by Mad Matt, 24/03/2025 16:38

"@kenji Just speculating but I guess the team saw something in the data and were hoping it wouldn't get worse. Why do I think that? Because in the radio message I heard they were very precise about how many mm worse it would get... I find it hard to believe they could just pull that number out of the air. But of course we will probably never know.

In short, a great weekend for Oscar and a good drive. For Lando, I suppose finishing that close behind your team mate in 2nd despite an "off" weekend and a brake issue isn't so bad. An interesting season ahead :-)"

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6. Posted by kenji, 24/03/2025 13:06

""I think the team were hiding it from me...." Really? How did they do that? If they did and didn't communicate that to the driver as a precaution to ameliorate any surprises that would be most dangerous. I don't think that we're getting the whole 'enchilada' here. Is there some denial creeping in?"

"We were very lucky," admits Norris

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