Formula 1 ®
Timely safety car gifts Lando Norris his long awaited first Grand Prix victory!
Norris had some good Karma benefitting from a well-timed safety car for a crash involving Kevin Magnussen and F1Weekly’s host favorite driver Logan Sargeant, sprinting away from Max Verstappen over the second half of the race to win the Miami Grand Prix.
Norris in sixth in the first opening laps of the race, his car had some serious race pace. Norris moved his way to second as the cars ahead of him made pit stops and was clicking off fast laps on his medium compound tires.
He took over the lead after Verstappen pitted just before Carlos Sainz and Norris’ McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri did. Once Piastri pitted, Norris took over the race lead when Magnussen and Sergeant collided in the first sector.
Norris wouldn’t have won the race if the crash hadn’t happened when it did. But his win wasn’t solely due to the safety car either. Norris pulled a second ahead of Verstappen a lap after the restart and then drove away from the three-time defending world champion over the final 24 laps of the 57-lap race.
Norris, 24, is also the first driver not named Verstappen to win a race in Miami. Verstappen entered Sunday’s Grand Prix as the winner of the first two races on the circuit around Hard Rock Stadium and won Saturday’s sprint race rather easily.
We did it we did it!
Max’s car didn’t have any performance over the final stint of the race. He complained over his radio lack of front grip and found himself much closer to third-place finisher Charles Leclerc than Norris by the end of the race. Verstappen was 7.6 seconds adrift of Norris at the finish line and just 2.3 seconds ahead of Leclerc.
Max
“Ultimately today we were not quick enough; the safety car did not help us but we still had plenty of opportunities to win the race and unfortunately we lacked pace. When we took the car back to the garage, we also found that the floor was damaged and had a hole in which could have been picked up from hitting the cone. We also struggled with the tyres and balance of the car all weekend and I never felt too comfortable in the car. In the high speed I was understeering and we also struggled a lot with the grip with the tyres. It wasn’t our best weekend and it really shows that everything needs to work well to win races and it is not as easy as people might think. However, I am happy for Lando. Your first win is always emotional and he drove a great race: it was a long time coming and he deserved it today.”
Fernando
RACE P9
“After a difficult day yesterday, it was good to come away from this weekend with some points for the team. We got a bit lucky with the timing of the Virtual Safety Car and then the full Safety Car bunching the field up. We then took this opportunity to fit the Medium tyres. This changed our strategy a little bit and allowed us to have some good battles out there. I enjoyed the racing and it seems we showed a little more performance in the race than we did in Qualifying. We do have some work to do to improve our performance in the next couple of races. I am happy for Lando [Norris]. It’s always special to secure your first win.”
Yuki p7
“Very happy, what a great job by the team! It’s been an incredible week in which we scored in both races. We kind of expected we would have a good performance here but the most important thing is that we achieved it. As a team, we stuck to our plan and didn’t make any mistakes today. As for me, overall, I’m happy with my driving even though I made a mistake at the start. I reset myself and kept going, and especially in the last stint where I was just driving by myself, I was pushing and able to achieve similar lap times to the cars in front. The team developed a great car and I appreciate them a lot.
The amount of push from the factory is incredible and in the end, we were able to score well-deserved points. We were able to progress quickly from the start of the season, so I’m looking forward to the future. The next race in Imola is kind of another home race for me, so I hope we’ll be able to continue our rhythm and achieve a good result in front of our home crowd, especially people from the factory. Everyone is doing a fantastic job and we’ll definitely keep pushing!”