Lando Norris described his victory at the British Grand Prix and his intense battle with Oscar Piastri for the world championship as exhausting, but is hopeful he has established some momentum for the next round in Belgium.
“It’s two wins, but they’ve not come easy by any means,” he said, after following up his win in Austria at Silverstone. “We’ve had good fights, but they’re pretty strenuous, exhausting weekends because you’re fighting for hundredths and thousandths and you’re fighting for perfection every session and I’m against some pretty good drivers. So, it takes a lot out of you, especially when you have a race like Sunday.”
Norris’s maiden win at Silverstone secured his first career back-to-back wins. Both races were high pressure head-to-head fights with his McLaren teammate Piastri, with little to choose between the two drivers in either meeting.
On Sunday Piastri had been leading, with Norris challenging him hard, until the Australian was given a 10-second penalty for braking erratically at a safety car restart. It allowed Norris to take the lead when Piastri took his penalty. Norris went on to win a demanding race in treacherous conditions that caught many drivers out and he felt he had needed to be at the top of his game to defeat his teammate twice in succession.
Norris now has four wins to Piastri’s five this year and has closed the gap to the Australian to just eight points, with 12 races left. The 25-year-old has struggled with the McLaren at times this season, not enjoying the feel of the grip from the front of the car, and this has been costly on occasion, particularly in qualifying.
However in Austria McLaren adjusted his front suspension and Norris confirmed that it has been an improvement. The British driver may now be on something of a roll but was acutely aware he would have to deliver week in week out to maintain his title aspirations.
“I’ve had two good weekends and, of course, I would love to continue that momentum, but it still requires more consistency,” he said. “Two weekends doesn’t mean anything otherwise. And I just need to keep it up and keep working hard.”
Piastri was furious with his penalty, imposed because the stewards ruled his sudden braking had forced Max Verstappen to take evasive action. However, the McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella, suggested that Verstappen may have been deliberately gaming the system to make the incident appear more serious than it was.
“We’ll have to see also if other competitors kind of made the situation look worse than what it is,” he said. “Because we know that as part of the race-craft, some competitors definitely have the ability to make others look like they are causing severe infringement when they are not.”
