Norris and Verstappen spent the weekend arguing over who had the fastest car. After qualifying, Verstappen said Norris did, Norris said it was Verstappen. After the race, both felt it was the McLaren.
But Norris’ team principal Andrea Stella was not so sure.
“I think the race pace was very similar,” Stella said. “The fact we were faster at the end is because we had fresher tyres. He was faster at the start because we were behind Russell. It looked like parity of performance in qualifying carried over into the race.”
For Stella, the key to losing rather than winning was not losing position to Verstappen at the start, but ending up with Russell in between them. Had Verstappen got ahead with Norris in second behind him, Stella said, McLaren would still have done their off-set strategy.
“We were just a little bit too long behind Russell at the start, otherwise the race would have come to us at the end of the 66 laps,” Stella said.
“A couple of positions lost at corner one and the time lost behind Russell are the decisive factor.
“If we were behind Verstappen at the start we could have played our cards with good chances.”
And Stella said he would not be distracted by Norris’ pessimistic assessment of what might have been.
“The fact he is self-critical is a style,” Stella said. “And sometimes we react on the style and not on the content.
“Lando’s start was not bad at all. It was a decent start. He was almost one car ahead of Max but the fact is Russell got the double slipstream of Lando and Max and in corner one Lando was just very wise. A second and your race is gone and we want to stay in the race.
“It’s more in the detail. Very marginal.
“We don’t overreact to the style of Lando being tough with himself. I am sure it is something he will keep fine-tuning over the years.
“Lando just drove very well the entire weekend and if he is upset for a P2 being two seconds from Max then this is really good news for everyone, including F1. Because it means that we have races where with little details, like defending your pole position, we finally can have some different winners than Max.”
Norris does not have long to wait to make amends. This weekend, the teams roll into Austria for the second of three races on consecutive weekends. And following that is the British Grand Prix.
Austria was last year the race at which McLaren leapfrogged from the lower midfield to the front with a major upgrade on their car. It was the first evidence of the remarkable turnaround the team have managed under Stella’s considered, emotionally intelligent leadership.
The Red Bull Ring is a track where Norris has always excelled; McLaren, too. And the same goes for Silverstone.
“Austria and Silverstone,” Norris said. “Two of my favourite tracks. We are on a good roll. I just need to tidy up a few bits and then we will be on top.”