09/05/2024
NEWS STORY
"It's been a long time coming, but finally I've managed to do it," says Lando Norris of his maiden F1 win, as team boss Andrea Stella admits that a "huge weight" has been lifted off everyone's shoulders.
If is F1 spelled backwards, Murray Walker was forever telling us.
If Sergio Perez had clipped the rear of his teammate's car in Turn 1, might the ensuing incident have caused an even earlier deployment of the Safety Car? If Kevin Magnussen hadn't subsequently barged his way past Logan Sargeant would another incident have resulted in the decision to deploy the Safety Car which effectively handed victory to Norris? If, if, if.
Fact is however, that the Safety Car was deployed and it did benefit the McLaren youngster, however surely no-one could begrudge him a win that was clearly popular with his rivals.
The only downside to the afternoon was that his teammate cruelly lost out, though one has the feeling - such was his mastery of the situation whilst battling Carlos Sainz - that Oscar's win won't be too long in coming.
But for now, the spotlight shines on Norris.
"What a race," he declared in the moments after the race. "It's been a long time coming, but finally I've managed to do it.
"I'm so happy for my whole team that I finally delivered for them," he added. "A long day, a tough race, but I'm finally on top, so I'm over the moon.
Asked if he feels a weight has been lifted from his shoulders, he admitted: "As much as I want to say no, it's a yes. To get that first victory is always incredible. And I've, of course, had my moments where we've been close, but I've never been able to convert it into the win.
"But I wasn't worried," he insisted. "As much as a lot of people doubted that I was going to be able to put it together and win a race, I wasn't worried. I've kind of been more confident than ever this year that I've got what it takes and the team have got what it takes and I was patient with it.
"I've just been doing my job and executing my races, executing my qualis, and doing what I can do best.
"I knew my time was coming. I said it this morning. It's not often that I'm optimistic about things. But actually, all weekend, there's been something, you know... like, already practice, qualis. We've been close. And we were very good on Friday. And there was kind of that spark. And we maybe lost it a little bit into Saturday. But today, it definitely came back and turned into a little fire. So yeah, it was an incredible race."
However, 57 laps earlier it appeared more probable that teammate Piastri was the better bet, as Norris slipped to sixth having lost out in the first corner incident that saw Sergio Perez almost lose it.
"I kind of had a little flashback to yesterday's Sprint race when I saw Sergio on the inside," he said. "I just thought, 'OK, let's try to make it around Turn 1 for once'. So I took it easy. I knew we had good pace, and I knew I was in it for the long game.
"I was behind Checo the whole of the first stint, but my pace at the end of the first stint was the best on track. And I could still see Max. And when you can see Max, there's hope...
"It's not often that you can see Max on track. So I knew the whole time, even when I was back in sixth, that there could be opportunities, whether there was one Safety Car or something went my way.
"I was very quick at the end of the first stint. I kept my head down. We kept pushing. Everyone boxed from ahead of me, and I could just use all the pace that I had, which was a lot of it. And being able to go so long on the tyres, being able to have the pace I had, turned into that bit of luck, which I'll happily admit. Sometimes you've got to have a bit of luck on your side, and things have got to go your way, and I had that today. I'll take it happily. and yeah after the Safety Car I could kind of just get my head down and push on and I was confident I could take it from there."
Clearly benefitting from the raft of upgrades introduced this weekend, all of which were on his car, Norris was asked if he feels he can now challenge for wins on a regular basis.
"I said at the beginning of the year we could win races," he replied. "A lot of people doubted what I could say and the fact that I said that. I think they doubted that McLaren could win races. They doubted that I could win races. But I was confident. Deep down I knew that we had our time coming.
"The team have done an amazing job. We weren't even into Q2 here last year. So now the fact we're on top, we've won a race, the team have done an insane job to kind of go from where we were to where we are now. And we've chipped away, especially the last couple of months. There's been a lot of hard work. And whenever you bring an upgrade, it's not easy to kind of just go out and execute and just show that it's better. But little things come together and when you have all these little bits coming together, it turns into a perfect day like it did today.
"So, of course, I have to say a big thanks to all of McLaren, everyone back in the factory, everyone that's here, because I doubt... It would have been a lot less likely that I won today without these upgrades and without the hard work that they've been putting into everything. So, I would like to say it's the start. And now I'm already hungry for more. But, yeah, we'll keep our heads down. We'll keep pushing and I'm sure we can be here a lot more often."
While the Safety Car was crucial, over the years we have seen drivers lose out at the restart, yet Norris appeared to have it all under control.
"I've not done many Safety Car restarts from the front for a good amount of years," he admitted. "So, yeah, just a bit rusty. That was all. I'll make sure I work on it a little bit more for next time.
"But yeah, as long as I defended well into Turn 1 and kept the lead in Turn 1, I was quite confident I could go from there. So the pace was good enough in the first stint. Maybe didn't look it at the very beginning, just because I was stuck behind a lot of cars. But having clean air, having fresher tyres as well, I could push and I was a little bit wary that Max normally is a bit slow off the mark and then all of a sudden clicks it into gear two and he's gone. But not today. So in a good way, I could just stay focused, keep the car on track, not make any mistakes and the car felt great.
"But I said already on Friday, it felt good. I was confident on Friday and today that kind of feeling came back to me a lot. It was good. A lot of Sundays recently have been strong. Just today we managed to step it up and turn it into something even more. But I was pushing. I wanted to go for a fastest lap on the last lap. But I was imagining Andrea on the pit wall, like, 'no, Lando, please'. So, yeah, he was talking to me, but I just thought then just to take it home and take it easy.
"But until then, you know, I wanted to pull away, and I didn't want Max in the picture when I was over the line, and I don't think he was. So that was job done. So happy with that."
As for the weight being lifted, team boss, Andrea Stella agreed.
"Realistically it was a bit of a weight on his shoulders," he said. "But it was some weight on our shoulders as well, because we knew as soon as we had made winning material available to Lando he would have delivered. So we felt the responsibility and I said that many times. We feel like it's up to us, it's not up to Lando.
"Credit to Lando that he kept developing, how he developed over the winter, especially looking for instance at improving in qualifying and delivering laps that sometimes don't have to be 100% when you have a fast car," he added. "Just be there. And I think he's doing that.
"Also I have to say his race management is now very mature," he continued. "As soon as he saw that there wasn't much to do after the first lap, he started to save tyres, because he knew his race would come at some stage.
"And then that pace he was able to pull off once the cars ahead of him pitted, that was quite incredible. Fast in qualifying, pacing himself, and very mature in the race at getting the best out of himself."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Miami here.