F1 Expert Highlights McLaren’s Flaw That Prevented Lando Norris From Gaining Advantage on Max Verstappen

Lando Norris was in the best position to double his wins tally, starting from pole at the Spanish GP. However, the Briton had a bad race start and dropped down to third, which resulted in him chasing back the race leader Max Verstappen throughout the rest of the Grand Prix. Sky Sports F1 presenter, Craig Slater has explained what prevented Norris from coming back at the Dutchman right away in the opening laps.

Speaking in a YouTube video by Sky Sports News, Slater highlighted, “There is a bit of a question mark on why couldn’t Norris have done what Verstappen did at the start of that race in terms of getting past George Russell quickly. There is a reason for that.”

“Norris’ car is more effective at the end of stints. Max’s car at the beginning when he has just fitted a set of new tires. So Norris was always going to play the longer game”, he added.

Norris had a good start in the initial moments of the race and he defended well from Verstappen to protect his lead. However, George Russell got a mega slipstream from behind to go for a bold overtake around the outside of both Verstappen and Norris.

“The car was incredible today, I think we were for sure the quickest, I just lost it in the beginning…” ️

An honest debrief from Lando ⤵️#F1 #SpanishGP

— Formula 1 (@F1) June 23, 2024

Now, the Dutchman overtook the Mercedes in the subsequent laps, but Norris couldn’t despite being in the fastest car on the track. Thus, the McLaren driver had to resort to a modified strategy to outpace the Red Bull car in the lead.

While Norris was chasing down and cutting back at Verstappen’s lead well, he fell short by 2.2 seconds to take the win. He blamed himself for not maximizing the pace of the MCL38, despite the inherent trait of his car being faster at the end of stints.

Max Verstappen has a hard-fought battle ahead to claim his fourth title

Craig Slater highlighted how Lando Norris has a realistic chance of fighting Max Verstappen for the championship this year. While Verstappen won the Spanish GP and maintained his comfortable advantage in the championship standings, he is not out of the woods yet.

Norris is 69 points behind the three-time champion in P2 and now perhaps has the fastest car with McLaren developing better than Red Bull. It was evident in Barcelona as Slater cited how winning the Spanish GP was a hard-fought battle for Verstappen.

Thus, with 14 races to go, the Dutchman being under pressure from Norris and Co. is a major shift in the pecking order in 2024. Slater thinks Norris could have easily won three of the last five races [Imola, Canada, Spain] if he had perfectly executed all aspects of the race.

As a result, if going into Austria and Silverstone, if the Briton can convert this run of second-place finishes into wins, the 69-point advantage of Verstappen won’t take long to swing in Norris’ favor.