Lando Norris has demanded that some Formula 1 drivers show “a bit more self-awareness” after he had to “avoid a very big crash” on the restart in the Mexico Grand Prix.
Norris had progressed from 17th to 10th in the opening half of the 71-lap encounter when the race was suspended on Lap 33 after Kevin Magnussen crashed at Turn 9.
But he lost out four places on the restart, with replays showing the Briton experienced a lethargic getaway before getting out of the throttle ahead of the approach to Turn 1.
Explaining the incident post-race, Norris reveals that he had to evade a potential crash when multiple drivers were jostling for position on the 890m blast to the first corner.
“I enjoyed the whole thing, apart from my restart,” he said.“I don’t know if you saw it but yeah, I probably had to avoid a very big crash, just people coming across not realising that people can be three abreast.
“So I avoided two extremely big crashes which would have been very nasty so, a bit more self-awareness from some drivers would be great.”
However, Norris has denied that the near miss was responsible for the setback.
He added: “It’s not why I lost out, I lost out because of a bad start but I lost out even more because of these things.”
Norris mounted a charge across the remainder of the race to gain nine places to fifth, prompting McLaren’s Andrea Stella to hail it “one of the best races” he’s seen.
The 23-year-old was equally enthused by McLaren’s pace despite running a compromised setup for overtaking, believing only the top two finishers were quicker.
“The pace was amazing already from Lap 1,” Norris beamed. “There was a lot of management involved and already when I came over the line the first time I got told to cool the engine.
“So we maybe weren’t perfectly set up for these things and I couldn’t push as much as I wanted to at times but at other times I could which was a lot of the second stint.
“The pace was excellent to go from 14th, 15th to 5th, to have better pace than almost everyone bar than [Lewis] Hamilton and Max [Verstappen] was very encouraging for us. So, yeah. As perfect a day as I could have probably asked for.”
Having navigated his way past both Alpine cars, Nico Hulkenberg and Alex Albon, Norris rapidly caught team-mate Oscar Piastri, resulting in McLaren using team orders.
“I didn’t ask to go past or anything,” Norris revealed. “I was happy to race against him. but I think it was clear from [the] pace and points that I eventually went on to get it, that was the correct thing to do from a team perspective. Thanks again to him.”
Norris then proceeded to reel in both Daniel Ricciardo and George Russell, who was struggling increasingly on his Medium tyre.
After dispatching Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri with a bold move around the outside into Turn 4, Norris used the same corner to set up a clever switchback on Russell into Turn 6.
“You know deep down, I know these guys really well, I know Daniel but he’s not going to want to give it up easily at all, right! Two tough ones but enjoyable,” he reflected.
“All the racing got done after the restart. It was fair, tough and hard and that’s when it’s good fun!”
Following his costly Q1 exit in qualifying, McLaren elected to diverge from the rest of the competition by starting Norris on Softs.
Norris believes it “absolutely” worked out for him, crediting his McLaren team for helping him to maximise the best possible result.
“It just helped me in the start, off the line and things like that,” he said. “Turn 1 can go your way, it cannot go your way, but I think we played everything smart. I think played it well.
“Maybe the Safety Car and a couple of things weren’t perfectly timed for us. The VSC and so forth. Otherwise, everything pretty much went our way, and we maximised today, the Softs included.”
