Lando Norris admits he was “caught sleeping” on Lap 1 but says George Russell ‘paid heavy price’ for pushing early
The McLaren driver started on pole but lost the lead to a fast-starting 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Max Verstappen, who secured the inside line for Turn 1 before easing to a comfortable victory in the sixth and final sprint race of tꦚhe season. 🎃;
Norris slipped back to third onဣ the first lap when Russell dived down the inside at Turn 10, thoug🌞h he was able to re-pass his fellow countryman to regain second on lap five.
“I’ll have to reജ-watch it, I’m not sure what happened,” Norris said of his start. “My reaction was good, but then the second phase was not good. That’s all I know for now▨.
“Tough opening lap I would say, not what I wanted, and then it was difficult to manage the tyres ⛎as much as you would want when you are in second. But it was still a good race, still good fun.
“I was caught sleep♌ing a little bit with George. He was pushing a lot on the opening couple o🎃f laps and I felt like maybe he paid the price quite heavily on lap three and four and five and six and seven and eight… All the way to the end.
“B🐈ut I tried then to get into DRS of Max. I thought if I could get the opportunity I would try it early on, so I could try and control the race out front in some cl💎eaner air, but never quite got close enough.
“Struggled a little bit too much in the last five laps of the race to look after the tyres as ♚much as what Max was able to do. Nevertheless, a strong race and good points.”
While Norris was disappointed not to be able to challenge Verstappen for the win, he was happy to take the positives from a race that wa꧟s ultimately dictated by tyre management.
“I was managing in qualifying already,” Nor♐ris l𓄧aughed. “These are the tyres from quali right.
“It’s a tough circuit, you don’t feel like you can push anywhere. It’s kind of always a little bit like this bꦓut it feels a liꦿttle bit like COTA in a way. You do two laps and after that you have no grip and are managing. Again, a management-based race.
“But positives. This wasn’t a circuit we were expecting to be close to the Red Bulls. If you look at our data fr꧂om last year and where we were good and bad, this definitely wasn’t up there with one of the goo๊d ones.
“Sometimes we are good in quali and quite poor in the race. But today w𒐪e were good compared to everyone, except Max. So tough but a good day for us.”
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