Lando Norris believes McLaren could have tried something different with its strategy in the Japanese Grand Prix, but his teammate Oscar Piastri did not complain at the lack of a switch of drivers late in the race.
Max Verstappen led from pole position and had Norris for close company approaching the first round of pit stops, with Piastri stopping first of the leading trio to try and cover off any threat of being jumped by cars behind. When Verstappen then came into the pits a lap later, Norris followed him in, and says that made for a tough race as there was no tire offset to allow him to try and fight the Red Bull more effectively.
“I could see Max quite clearly for the whole race, but just couldn’t make any inroads from that point onwards,” Norris said. “So I think him in clean air was enough to stay in that position and he didn’t make any mistakes. He drove a good race. The race was won yesterday in hindsight, and I guess we always kind of know the better position you start, the more chance you have of winning.
“I think our pace was probably slightly better, but not enough to get through the dirty air — kind of get into the DRS, and then passing is a whole other story because it’s pretty much impossible to pass here. I think it was a good race.
“We tried some things. Maybe we could have tried a bit more with strategy. Overcut or undercut — we just boxed on the same lap for some reason. So some things we’ll discuss, but good points for us as a team. Decent points for me. Of course, would have liked a little bit more, but have to take second sometimes.”
Piastri appeared to be the quicker of the McLarens in the second part of the race and regularly got within DRS range of Norris, but when he informed the team he felt he could attack Verstappen if Norris could go no quicker, McLaren opted against swapping positions.
“On the pit stop timing, [George] Russell had pitted I think the lap before and [Charles] Leclerc wasn’t that far behind, and we didn’t really know what the undercut power was going to be like,” he said. “And we’d gone a fair way into the race on the mediums anyway. So I think from my side there wasn’t anything that was obviously wrong with what we did.
“Then at the end, I said what I felt [on team radio]. Clearly the team were happy with the way things were. I mean, if I was in Lando’s position, I would also be pretty happy with the way things were. So that’s fine. Just said what I felt in the car and that’s how we want to go racing.”
