Lando Norris, McLaren Formula 1 driver, took the pole at Chinese Grand Prix. The team had no clue to unexpected car performance in sprint race, which led to the pole position.
The British driver struggled with his tyre wear rate throughout the sprint race. However, the car did not disappoint in the main event, where he finished behind the Max Verstappen. He successfully held back Sergio Perez and eventually took 15th podium of his career.
McLaren team had unexpected performance at the Chinese GP, where it had hoped to limit the damage. MCL38 had all the bad indicator like long corners for itself. Despite which it surprise everyone.
Norris claimed the team shared the same element of surprise. There had been no indicator of such a positive performance.
“We were just quicker than we thought. The limitations, the places we expected to struggle probably a lot more, we didn’t struggle as much in,” Norris said.
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“These longer corners, like Turn 1, have always been a big weakness for us and part of Turn 1 was probably better than we’re expecting. We’re still learning about the car and the tarmac is quite odd, maybe that played into our hands a bit more.
“We’re not making it up and we’re giving our honest opinion on where we want to be. I think if we were to go into a weekend and we knew we were going to be strong, we’d say so.
“But all year we’ve been behind Red Bull and Ferrari, so there’s no reason for us to suddenly think we should be ahead. Nothing really pointed to us having an amazing race today.”
Verstappen and Perez went for pit stop back to back, where Norris had yet to pit when Valtteri Bottas retired on lap 20. He thought he had missed the opportunity to take advantage of virtual safety car.
“There were a few f-words and s-words and so on,” Norris said. “It was obvious it was going to be a VSC but it just didn’t come out.
“I was saying to myself, like, ‘I bet it’s going to come out as soon as I go around the last corner’, and it literally did!”
However, a lengthy delay to clear F1 track helped Norris to take a good position on track.
“Things obviously went our way for sure, because it made the Red Bulls have to stop again. That obviously put me out ahead of Checo with the Ferrari in between us. That probably saved me a little bit.”
