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Lando Norris believes a third-place podium finish was the perfect result for an amazing weekend at Imola. The Briton revealed that his good start was key to achieving the best in the race along with capitalizing on Charles Leclerc’s unfortunate mistake.
Describing his race in the media pen at the Imola GP, the McLaren driver said:
“Got no idea. Everyone just crashes in front of me, it’s wonderful. We won a lot in the start, I had a perfect start, honestly. Probably the best one I have had in the wet, that put me ahead of a bit of the carnage, Carlos [Sainz] got taken out then so. We won a lot in the beginning and we just had really good pace throughout. I guess not as amazing as the guys ahead but I just managed it like I need to do, like ahead of George [Russell]. And that’s all I needed to do.”
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The Briton revealed the start of the Imola race was one of the best in his career and it helped him a lot during the race. Lando Norris feels his team had a great recovery from the issues it suffered from in the first two races. Staying out of trouble at the start was one of the reasons the Briton claims to have had a trouble-free race later.
Subsequently, the McLaren driver revealed that his only job throughout the race was to keep George Russell at bay and build a significant gap over the Mercedes driver. A fourth-place finish was good enough but the third-place podium result was cherry-on-the-cake, according to the Briton.
Commenting on his overall performance, Lando Norris said:
“It was good of course, fourth still would have been amazing. But to be P3, made the most of Charles’s [Leclerc] mistake was just the icing on the cake to the pretty amazing weekend we’ve had so far.”
Lando Norris reveals McLaren's updates did resolve their issues and improved their performance
According to Lando Norris, they had pace in their car all weekend and had built up well towards a good result. McLaren suffered from severe brake heating issues which they had resolved using a temporary fix in Australia. Team principal Andreas Seidl had mentioned that their permanent solution to the problem was to arrive at Imola, after which they seemed to be back on pace. The Briton confirmed that the small updates on their car worked and helped them find some performance.
Explaining the reasons behind the good result, Norris said:
“I think there is work to be done of course. It is a night to see that we’ve made that little step forward. We’ve brought up all little things to the car this weekend and it seemed to have helped. It’s only one track. So we will have to see on some others. But you know the trend over the last three races has been a much better one and of course we will try to keep that up. Bring small improvements and continue to try and score like we did today. It’s not gonna be easy. It needs to be a perfect weekend to be able to do this over and over again. But we’re getting closer and the hard work and time put in to get these parts. It’s huge for us and it’s helping them score things like today. So a big thanks to the team.”
The P3 result helped the Briton lead his experienced team-mate Daniel Ricciardo by 24 points in the drivers’ standings. Now, with their brake issues resolved, the development curve ahead for McLaren will be an interesting journey over the next 19 races.
