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BARCELONA, Spain — As upbeat as his race engineer, Will Joseph, tried to be on the radio, there was no pleasing Lando Norris after he crossed the line for second in the Spanish Grand Prix.
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He’d finished just two seconds behind Max Verstappen on a track that, historically, has been one of Red Bull’s strongest, putting on pressure with an aggressive strategy.
“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” Norris said when congratulated on the result. “I should have won. I f—d the start. The car was amazing. (We) deserved more.”
Even after getting out of his car and as the emotions of the race wore off, Norris was adamant this was a missed opportunity for his second career win following his Miami breakthrough in May. When David Coulthard said in the parc ferme interview it was clear this was a race Norris felt he could have won, the McLaren driver corrected him: “Not could, should have done. I just got a bad start, simple as that.”
All the angles from an INCREDIBLE opening few laps in Barcelona! 📸 💯#SpanishGP pic.twitter.com/HEkcMXyROT
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 23, 2024
Norris put the start, where he slipped from pole position on the grid to third by the first corner, the “one negative that kind of ruined everything.” He had the pace to beat Verstappen and Red Bull today. Verstappen knew it, too. “Clearly, today, we lacked that outright pace a bit,” Verstappen said.
It proved how the competitive picture in F1 has changed since the beginning of the season when Verstappen and Red Bull had a greater safety net. In Spain on Sunday, the Dutchman had to be perfect to beat Norris — and even then, it was only enough because of some little, crucial details that cost the McLaren driver.
Why the start hurt Norris so much
The run from the starting grid to the first corner in Barcelona is one of the longest of the season, meaning Norris always knew that, as the man on pole, he’d be at risk by giving the slipstream to the cars behind.
Norris made a good initial getaway but struggled in the second phase of his start, forcing him to squeeze Verstappen to the inside in a move that caused the Red Bull to briefly touch the grass (some “rallying,” as Verstappen called it) and briefly piqued the attention of the stewards. But the Mercedes of George Russell, who tucked into first Verstappen’s slipstream, then Norris’s, to get a slingshot around the outside into Turn 1, really caught him out as he backed out and settled into third.
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“That one thing cost me everything,” Norris said of his start. “From Turn 2 onwards, (it was) 10 out of 10. I don’t think I could have done much more, and I think, as a team, we did the perfect strategy. I was very happy with what we did.
“But yeah. The one part of the start, the 1 percent elsewhere, wasn’t good enough.”
It was still up to Verstappen to make the most of the chance he’d been given. By the end of the second lap, Verstappen was already being told by his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, to make a move: “Might be our best opportunity now, Max. Think wisely.”
Lambiase was right. Verstappen swept past Russell at the start of Lap 3, giving him the space from Norris to slowly build a buffer without taking too much out of his tires. Norris could not get past Russell quickly, who was losing time to Verstappen despite pushing hard. By the time Norris finally got clean air when Russell pitted, he was already five seconds back from Verstappen.
This is where the damage was done. Norris knew he had the pace and quickly shunned a thought to try to cover off Russell in favor of going after Verstappen. This now meant McLaren had to get aggressive with its strategy if it wanted any chance to win, leading it to keep Norris out for a longer first stint.
McLaren’s strategy offset
The high level of tire degradation in Barcelona meant the powerful undercut would always give track position to those who had pitted earlier. By pushing further into the race, Norris was slipping back from not only Verstappen, who came in at the end of Lap 17 but also Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
Norris pitted on Lap 23, giving him a six-lap tire advantage — but he now had to get past both Mercedes cars. Barcelona’s limited overtaking opportunities didn’t help his cause, forcing Norris to use more of his tires to make up the lost ground through this phase. While his pass on Hamilton on Lap 32 was easy, aided by DRS on the main straight, the move on Russell three laps later was much harder work.
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The pair went side-by-side for half a lap, exchanging cutbacks before Norris finally surged clear into Turn 7. It was a thrilling fight that didn’t help his pursuit of Verstappen as he lapped six-tenths of a second slower than the previous lap. “It cost me a bit of lap time and hurt my gap to Max in the end,” Norris said. “But it was pleasant. It was on the edge, it was close, but respectful.”
With only Verstappen ahead, Norris now had the chance to use what was left of his tire edge over the Red Bull. He reduced the gap from nine seconds to less than five in the eight laps before Verstappen dived into the pits. At no point had Verstappen looked like upping his pace in response to Norris closing in on him. There genuinely looked to be a chance of a fight at the front if Norris could repeat that pace through the final stint.
Norris pitted three laps later, but a slightly slow stop — 3.6 seconds, compared to Red Bull’s 2.8-second service of Verstappen — also cost him. Norris narrowly got out ahead of Russell but had eight seconds to bridge to Verstappen at the front.
“I was feeling good at that point,” Norris said. “It was more, could I close the gap in the amount of laps that I had, which was going to be the bigger question.”
The answer was no. Verstappen was told twice that Norris was pushing hard, implying he needed to react. But with 12 laps to go, when Verstappen managed to match Norris’s pace and stabilize the gap, it was clear the fight was over.
The margin was 2.2 seconds at the checkered flag. Considering the start and the time lost behind Russell, it’s clear where the time — and the race — was lost. And Norris knew it.
“They are the two decisive factors,” said McLaren team principal Andrea Stella. “The pit stop (was) probably another one second, but in fairness, even the one second, if we were behind Verstappen at the start, I think we could have played our cards with good chances.”
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Is Norris now a title contender?
Norris’s disappointment was evident through the post-race press conference. He admitted this defeat hurt more than the one in Montreal, where a couple of bad decisions denied him victory. But for it to be the second race in a row that he could have won on merit ahead of Verstappen is an encouraging sign for the coming races.
Verstappen acknowledged McLaren was doing “a really, really good job” with its updates, noting that Red Bull hadn’t made the same relative jump with its developments. It has left some spots where it was exposed in Spain, particularly tire performance at the end of a stint — which was also evident at Imola. “Now it’s up to us to try and find a bit more (performance), try and get that little jump ahead again,” Verstappen said.
It’s a world away from Red Bull’s 2023, which team boss Christian Horner again referred to as a “unicorn year” after the race in Spain. Its advantage has gone.
“We’re having to fight really hard for the wins at the moment,” Horner said. “We’re having to be on the top of our game as a team, and the drivers have to be at the top of their game as well. That’s Formula One, that’s as it should be.”
Stella also took heart in the fact only small details cost McLaren victory on Sunday. On a weekend where a fire in its hospitality unit disrupted its preparations on Saturday, it came within a few seconds of victory. “If (Norris) is upset for a P2, finishing two seconds from Max, then this is really good news for everyone in F1,” Stella said. “It means with little details, like defending your pole position, we can have different winners than Max.”
Second place nevertheless vaulted Norris up to P2 in the drivers’ championship, 69 points shy of Verstappen at the front and two ahead of Charles Leclerc. A considerable margin, but could Norris dare to think of a title charge? He gave a lukewarm yes, recognizing that Verstappen is “not making any mistakes” and would have to stop winning to make it a realistic thought.
“We can’t afford to let him run away with it at this point of the season,” Norris said. “If I just made some better decisions in Canada, and if I had a better start today, we would have won two races.
“I know there’s always been a lot of shoulda, woulda, couldas. But we have what it takes. It’s just about putting it all together.”
(Lead photo of Lando Norris: Andrea Diodato/NurPhoto via Getty Images)