Lando Norris has started to develop another unwelcome statistic to his name about pole positions. Out of the five pole positions the McLaren driver has got [for both Grands Prix and sprint races], he has not been able to lead the race by the end of the first lap on any occasion.
It all started at the 2021 Russian GP when Norris earned a dominant pole position in wet conditions by over half a second. However, at the race start, he could not retain his advantage as Carlos Sainz took the lead.
After that, Norris lost the lead from pole in the 2023 Brazilian GP sprint race to Max Verstappen, who started second. The same story repeated in the Shanghai sprint race this year, as Lewis Hamilton took the lead from Norris in the opening corners itself.
Since the Chinese GP, the Briton has taken two Grand Prix poles in Spain and Hungary. However, George Russell swooped around the outside of Norris from P3 in Spain and Oscar Piastri dived down the inside on him to lead in Hungary. While Norris has ended the trend of not winning a race and repeatedly finishing P2, this trend of not capitalizing on his pole advantage may become another unwanted record.
this can’t be real pic.twitter.com/Smjdx3RsWG
— javi (@prancingwhores) July 22, 2024
Apparently, his only Grand Prix win in Miami this year came from P5 on the grid. So, Norris needs to work on retaining his pole advantage and make better race starts to convert his poles to wins more often.
In Hungary too, if Norris had made a better race start to take the lead, he could have converted that pole to a win. However, Piastri taking the lead complicated matters for him and McLaren.
How McLaren messed things up for Lando Norris in Hungary
After Piastri took the lead from Norris at the Hungarian GP, the Aussie was sublime with his race pace. For two-thirds of the race, he looked set to take his maiden Grand Prix win, despite starting in P2 behind Norris. Although, McLaren made a strategic misjudgment in pitting the British driver first at the second round of pitstops.
This handed him the advantage of an undercut on Piastri. Thus, when the Aussie pitted, Norris took the race lead and built a comfortable gap to P2. Now, the McLaren pit wall wanted to ensure a one-two finish but it was taking the race win away from Piastri, who had put in a flawless drive and deserved the priority as he took the lead at the start.
Message delivered to the McLarens
Oscar gets his first Grand Prix win… IF he catches up to Lando on merit #F1 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/NZ7K2L85kK
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 21, 2024
However, Norris did not wish to oblige to the team’s orders of letting Piastri pass, as he was in P1 at a similar pace to Piastri. The #4 driver deliberated on this decision with his engineer on radio, while resisting to follow the team orders for almost 20 laps.
Eventually, Norris backed off on lap 68 to hand Piastri the lead and followed him to seal a one-two finish for McLaren. The Briton would rue his race start not being good enough to lead the race from pole, which cost him a second career win.
