Lando Norris and McLaren once again missed another good chance for victory. And this season has quite a lot. Since the last Miami GP, those from Woking have taken a definite step to be consistent with Red Bull. However, the results do not say the same. The driver and team accumulated many errors in the final rounds against a great Verstappen and history repeated itself this Sunday at Silverstone, where Lando Norris took the lead with his teammate Piastri behind when it rained. It can be a double. But failures complicated things again.
Piastri’s chances went out the window when McLaren decided not to make a double pit stop and he was stopped two laps later by Verstappen and one last by Lando. And before changing dry tires comes another series of definite mistakes.
Hamilton was second and stopped a lap early to change tires. On the next lap (39), Lando did it. Previously, McLaren asked Norris about the type of rubber he wanted. And the Bristol pilot’s response was inappropriate: “Ugh, I don’t know, some smooth, whatever.” The truth is that his team shouldn’t have asked him that question either. They had medium tires available and they made a mistake by putting soft tires like Hamilton. If not for that mistake, the English he could stay in second place or maybe attack Hamiltonwhich was able to mount only soft tires.
On top, During that stop, Norris overshot his pit stop point by a meter, making the tire change maneuver slower than usual. and giving up a few precious seconds. Another mistake for a Lando that should be improved if you want to aim for future titles.
“That crucial decision at the end, Hamilton just did a better job, so my respect to him and Mercedes, they deserve it. It is difficult. Lots of good things, but lots of disappointments. As a team, I don’t think we did the job we should have done, or good enough.”said a dejected Lando at a press conference.
“Whether I’m ready to win a GP at home now? I don’t know. I don’t make the right decisions. At the same time, I blame myself now for not making some of the right decisions. I do not want. I hate being in this position and always having excuses for not doing enough work.. But I think we still did a lot of things right. There are many positive things. But especially here at Silverstone, the one place where I would like everything to be perfect, today it is not. But I’m fine. “We’ll come back stronger next year and try again.”
However, in his defense, Lando Norris made it clear that in dry conditions, Mercedes seemed to have more speed.
“Obviously, we weren’t fast today either. I think when it’s completely dry, the Mercedes is faster, and in the wet maybe we got a little better, so we’ll do something. SAWe haven’t had a weekend where we were clearly the fastest. “We’ve always been there or close, but never the fastest car, and yes, I think we need to continue working as a team.”he commented.
“I’ve got to keep working on my stuff. And just trying to put it all together because there’s still a lot of positive stuff… So many good things and so many things in their place… But it’s disappointing that so many times this season we let something go that should have been ours.”he added.
Another victory they let slip
“A win that got away? I’ve been hearing that a lot lately, so I don’t want to say it again. But yeah. So many things went right… and we made it to the last stop. So a turn, but I don’t think it’s a turn either. I think even though I stopped with the perfect lap, our decision to go to the soft tire was wrong. I think Lewis will win no matter what. So two calls on our part cost us everything today. So, especially here, it’s a bit disappointing.
In Miami, McLaren took advantage of a ‘Safety Car’ to help Norris win. But at Imola, Verstappen took pole with a worse car and finished the race completely defending against the attacks of a Norris car to win. In Canada, his team made a mistake in strategy and Norris missed the first position at the end with an off-track.
In Barcelona,from pole position, Lando lost the race with a bad start. And in Austria, in a faster car again, he couldn’t catch Verstappen when he should have and it ended up in an accident. A week later, Norris clarified in a press conference that fighting for victories and against Verstappen was something new for him, he recognized that he had no experience and that he had to raise his level. And at the British GP, history repeated itself.
So, Verstappen has done nothing but increase his lead in the F1 drivers’ championship despite not currently having the fastest car. He has done wonders with his hands with many perfect races and got oil from nowhere, like his second place at Silverstone despite his lack of speed, with a better strategy than McLaren.
In Miami, after Norris’ victory, Verstappen was 53 points ahead of Lando. And after this chain of failures by the British and McLaren, after the British GP, the gap between Max and Norris is now 84.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
