Norris recovered to fourth after his qualifying disaster
Lando Norris says his charge to fourth place in Azerbaijan was a much better result than anticipated, but the McLaren star was still left frustrated by the “unfair” yellow flag that saw him stranded in 17th in qualifying.
Norris has to back off and abort his final lap in Q1 after a yellow flag was briefly displayed as Esteban Ocon toured back to the pits after clipping the wall.
He then gained two places on the final grid after Pierre Gasly was disqualified and Lewis Hamilton demoted to a pitlane start.
A long opening stint on the hard tyres moved him up the order from his initial 15th, and despite losing time behind fellow hard tyre starter Alex Albon he was able to pass Max Verstappen on the road for sixth.
The Perez/Sainz crashed gifted him two places in the closing laps, although title rival Verstappen also benefited.
Meanwhile his team mate Oscar Piastri won the race, showing just how competitive the car was in Baku.
“I don’t think we could have asked for a lot more today,” said Norris. “A good start, good strategy. I would have loved to have got past Alex a bit earlier. He made my life tough. But I couldn’t pass.
“So I don’t think I could have asked for a lot more. It’s definitely better than we were all expecting before today.
“So yeah, fourth was a great result. To be ahead of Max, just on merit and from pace and strategy, again, was a good result. So I mean, the car was flying. Because it was so good, it almost made me more annoyed about yesterday, and how silly that yellow flag was.”
Asked for his view on the qualifying flag incident he said: “No, it wasn’t fair. You don’t have to be a scientist to work it out. I don’t know. This is not for me to decide. It’s not for me to say it was unfair, and for it to ruin my whole weekend. I know I got a fourth today, and that’s not bad, but it could have been better.
“And I think Oscar showed what was possible today. So it was unfair. There was no yellow the whole lap, and he put a yellow out just as I come past, did I go off the track just before it. Yes? Would I still easily have got into the top 15? Yes. So I know there’s a lot of people that thought that that ruined my lap.
“I was still easily in, even with my off-track, I only lost like, a couple tenths, and I still easily would have been in. So yeah, people can say what they want, and I find a lot of it funny.
“But this was out of my control, and it was something that was unfair, and cost me a good amount of points in the championship today, and kind of ruined my weekend.
“So it’s disappointing, especially because of how good the car was today. Like I said, I’m the guy that’s thinking of what could have been, not how we did today, necessarily, but I’m very happy with today still.”
Norris said that team simulations put him in eighth place at the end behind the cars from the top four teams, although Hamilton’s pitlane start gifted him one spot.
“We would have been happy with eighth,” he said. “We just expected the top four teams to go, obviously me being eighth car. So we expected them to go and beat everyone else, but I got into 10th, I think quite quickly, I was in 10th already, I think five, six laps into the race.
“I had a good start, good opening lap, even on the hard tyre, and everyone else on the medium. So that’s a good kickstart to the whole day. And then I got behind Alex.
“I couldn’t do a lot. Carlos got past. I fought Max for a little bit, and Max just getting stuck behind me for a few laps, and overheated his tyres, and I could race against him.
“And Alex boxed. And then this made my race. As soon as Alex boxed, my pace was, I think, the best on track, even on the hards from the beginning of the race, and I managed to create a good gap and just unlock all the potential that the car had.
“So, yeah, eighth was our target, but we knew doing a hard start, and if things went well, better was possible. But it’s hard to anticipate and know what that was going to be.”
Norris admitted that he didn’t expect to be able to pass Verstappen on the road.
“A little bit surprised,” he said. “I mean, when you start 15th I didn’t really expect to beat him, especially because they were boxed and were behind me. So I was about 20-22 seconds behind on real terms where they were.
“So I played the game well. I couldn’t defend against Carlos, but I could defend against Max. But the main point was I defended against Checo, and just allowed him to not get ahead of Oscar.
“And then that pretty much allowed Oscar to go and get a win. So I did my small part for the team, which I’m very happy for, because it got us to P1 in the constructors’. And that’s really the thing that makes me happiest.”
Adam Cooper F1 