Lando Norris has divulged that he abandoned pursuing the fastest lap in Formula 1’s Miami Grand Prix as he suspected McLaren boss Andrea Stella was concerned.
Norris capitalised on a mid-race Safety Car intervention to assume the lead of the race and charge home unopposed to take his maiden F1 win at the 110th attempt.
The Briton had been setting a blistering pace on used Medium rubber prior to his stop and then had an advantage on his rivals who’d changed tyres earlier in the race.
But while Norris wanted to chase the bonus point allocated to the driver with the fastest race lap, he conceded that he envisaged Stella being stressed on the pit wall.
“I was pushing. I wanted to go for a fast lap on the last lap,” Norris said. “But I was imagining Andrea on the pit wall, like, ‘No, Lando, please’.
“So he was talking to me, but I just thought then, just take it home and take it easy.
“Until then, I wanted to pull away and I didn’t want Max in the picture when I was over the line, and I don’t think he was. That was the job. Job done, so happy with that.”
Norris has cited he was reluctant to drop his pace even once he had pulled clear from Verstappen as he wanted to minimise the chances he could make a mistake.
“I had to push fairly hard just for a lap and then I could kind of relax a little bit,” Norris explained.
“I had fresher tyres, my pace was very good in clean air and Max was for the first time I raced not in clean air so I had the advantage and I could control things fairly well.
“I pushed for the first bit, my engineer was giving me updates on the gap and I felt like I was cruising and extending the gap and I didn’t feel like I had to do anything more.
“So yeah, I didn’t have to push too much for the first lap or two and then I could kind of cruise and be fairly comfortable.
“I was still pushing because I wanted to open the gap, like I said. Of course, your mind wanders a bit. My mind does, maybe not everyone’s does.
“But yeah, you know, walls get close sometimes and you have those little moments where you think, ‘okay, don’t screw it up’.
“But I also was improving my laps and kind of getting quicker and quicker every lap so I had a lap time to focus on and I wanted to go into getting those fastest laps in.
“I don’t know if I did or not but I just wanted to focus on and that took my mind away from thinking of the wrong things and therefore it was all okay.”
McLaren still logged the fastest race lap as Oscar Piastri, who incurred damage in a clash with Carlos Sainz, utilised his fresher rubber to beat the previous benchmark.
However, Piastri’s position outside the points places meant that he did not obtain the reward, but he did at least prevent McLaren’s rivals from acquiring the extra point.
