Norris criticised for calling Verstappen 'lucky': 'He made the right call'
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- Cas van de Kleut
In Brazil, Lando Norris had the chance chance to catch up with Max Verstappen in the drivers' standings. Things went completely differently: where Verstappen won from starting in P17 on the grid. Norris was unlucky with a red flag and made several mistakes. Jeroen Bleekemolen, who previously won the 24h of Le Mans in the LMP2 category, told GPblog that he thinks the Briton made mistakes because he went the extra mile.
Norris lost the lead to George Russell at the start in Brazil, but he remained in contention for victory. During a virtual safety car, the Briton went in for a new set of intermediate tyres. Verstappen, who had made up many positions, stayed out. This eventually proved to be a masterstroke: the red flag was waved due to rain and a heavy crash by Franco Colapinto. This gave Verstappen the opportunity to change his tyres, as he could complete a 'free' pit stop. This put him one step ahead of his title rival.
'Norris threw away chance to open up the championship'
Norris was then fourth again at the restart, but mistakes caused him to lose several more positions. In the end, he finished P6, while Verstappen won. "It turned around quickly," Bleekemolen began. "He already won during the sprint race. Then you think: he's going to close in in terms of points [on Verstappen]. He was on pole, Verstappen on P17, after of course being very unlucky in Q2, with that red flag. But there came an outside chance for Lando Norris to really make the world championships wide open. He did throw that one away, you have to be honest like that."
After the race, Norris stated that Verstappen has been 'lucky' in Brazil. About this, Bleekemolen said, "I thought it was a bit lame that he threw it partly on luck at Verstappen and Red Bull. They made a conscious decision to continue driving until the red flag. And the chance that it [a red flag] was coming was really there."
The Dutch driver then stressed that Verstappen and his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase were constantly talking about a possible red flag: "It was all calculated. And from that moment [after the red flag] Lando Norris did panic a bit. Of course you saw that immediately on the restart."
Did Norris crack under pressure?
Asked if Norris crack to the pressure, Bleekemolen answered: "The difficult thing in motorsport - and I think in every sport for that matter - is that if things don't do well at once, then you try harder. And that is often exactly what you shouldn't do. It has to come a bit naturally, from within yourself. Especially in a racing car. If you try harder, you might try to brake a bit later. That is often not the solution, because if your braking point was good, but your minimum cornering speed was not, and you start braking later, then you actually ruin everything. Or you want to go too fast."
The Dutch driver continued, "That was actually the beauty again, looking back. Verstappen did drive from P17 to P1, but he didn't do that in one lap either. He was also behind Leclerc for a while. He also stayed patient. He could have taken more risk then too. Maybe he could have overtaken Leclerc with a lot of risk somewhere, but he thought, 'It will come to me, calm down'. And yes, when you then panic, all at once you do see Verstappen in front of you. Of course, that does sort of short-circuit your thoughts as an athlete. Then you think: 'How is this possible, how am I going to fix this'. And if you want to recover that too quickly, you can't. And that's obviously what did happen with Norris."
This article was written in collaboration with Kada Sarkozi
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