Lando Norris was torn between disappointment and delight
after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The disappointment stemmed from, as he put it, "what
could have been", and a possible victory he felt he had been
"unfairly" deprived of fighting for by some bad luck in qualifying.
But delight that the race had been won by his team-mate
Oscar Piastri, that Norris himself had played a significant part in that
victory, and that McLaren had ended the day replacing Red Bull as leaders of
the constructors’ championship.
This is a seismic development, even if it has felt like it
has been coming for a while, such has been McLaren’s run of form, and Red
Bull’s precipitous tumble from their pedestal.
This is the first time McLaren have led the constructors’
championship for more than a decade, since the first race of 2014. And even
that was an anomaly. Their car was uncompetitive at the start of that season;
they just had a decent result in a race in which faster cars faltered for one
reason or another.
McLaren last won the constructors’ title in 1998 - albeit
they scored more points than any other team in 2007, only to be disqualified
because of the ‘spy-gate’ controversy.
It has been a long road back to here. And team principal
Andrea Stella summed up the achievement well.
"We don’t have to forget that at the start of 2023 we
were last when we started the season and now we lead the classification,"
he said. "It is a huge milestone, possible thanks to the great work and
hard work and quality of work of the entire team."
Stella went on to emphasise, though, the importance of not
letting it distract them from the job in hand.
"This second is already over," Stella said.
"We don’t look at the classification. We just focus on executing at every
single event, delivering the upgrades we still plan to take to the future
races.
"Because the car is still not fast enough to create
some boring races, which is not in the interests of F1 but is definitely the
way we want to go racing.
"So we have work to do to make the car faster. We need
to remain humble and keep the feet on the ground because there is not much to
choose between the top teams."
From Red Bull’s perspective, the milestone is every bit as
big. This is the first time they have not led a championship since after the
Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in 2022 - two-and-a-half years ago.
Max Verstappen won seven of the first 10 races this season.
But he has not won for seven grands prix, and unless there is some kind of
miracle turnaround, that run is likely to extend to eight, for Singapore next
weekend is very much not Red Bull’s kind of track, and they expect to struggle
there.
In the drivers’ championship, Norris clawed back only three
points on Verstappen in Baku, and as a result the average of points-per-race he
needs to gain on the Red Bull driver to beat him by the end of the year
increased slightly, when McLaren went into Baku hoping it would reduce.
But given the circumstances of the weekend, that was very
much a win for Norris, even if he did not mention it.
‘It was unfair and ruined my weekend’
Piastri and Norris finished first and fourth in Baku at the
end of a race they had started second and 15th.
Piastri’s win was brilliant. Norris’ rise just as
remarkable. The fact he caught, passed and beat Verstappen, despite starting
the race nine places behind the Red Bull driver, surprised both Norris and
Stella.
Why did Norris start so low down? He was unlucky to catch a
brief yellow flag in the first part of qualifying.
McLaren felt the yellows - for the slow-moving Alpine of
Esteban Ocon as he came on to the pit straight - were not even necessary. But
they forced him to abort his lap, and he was knocked out after the first
session. Norris qualified 17th, but gained back two places following penalties
for Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
Norris was still brooding about it after the race.
"It was out of my control," Norris said. "It
was something that was unfair, and cost me a good amount of points in the
championship today and ruined my weekend.
"It's disappointing, especially because of how good the
car was today. I'm the guy thinking about what could have been, not what we did
today necessarily.
"The car was flying. It was so good it almost made me
more annoyed about yesterday and how silly that yellow flag was."
That’s the glass half-empty side of Norris. The glass
half-full version was also on show.
That was when he considered how he had not only held
Verstappen at bay on older tyres for a number of laps after the Red Bull
driver’s pit stop, but actually pulled away once Alex Albon’s Williams had
pitted out of Norris’ way.
Then, after Norris’ own later stop, he clawed back 15
seconds on Verstappen and passed him for what at the time was sixth place, but
became fourth when Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez crashed
while disputing third place with two laps to go.
"To create a gap ahead of him and to box and to still
overtake him," Norris said. "I wasn't expecting to do to such a
thing."
Stella said: "I would never have said we would beat
Verstappen on track."
For Norris, better even than that was the way he had helped
Piastri to victory.
Perez, who ran third in the first stint, had pitted for
fresh tyres before Piastri, and was on course to be ahead after the McLaren
made its stop.
But Perez had rejoined behind Norris, running a long first
stint on a reverse strategy, starting on the hard tyres. And Norris was able to
delay the Red Bull just enough to ensure Piastri rejoined the track still in
second place behind race leader Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
"Without Lando’s help, Perez would have pitted ahead of
Oscar,” Stella said. “So 50% of Oscar’s victory is shared with Lando. It shows
we are approaching racing as a team."
And it was this, rather than beating Verstappen, that was
the highlight of Norris’ day.
Norris said: "The main point was I defended against
Checo, allowed him to not get ahead of Oscar and that allowed Oscar to get a
win. I did my small part for the team, which I'm really happy for, because it
got us P1 in the constructors'. That's the thing that makes me the
happiest."
'Phenomenal driver, brilliant drive'
Norris’ race was outstanding on every level. Stella said:
"Absolutely brilliant execution from Lando’s point of view. I can’t see
any point in the 51 laps in which he could have done a better job today."
But it was at least matched by Piastri on his way to
victory.
The decisive moment of the race came just after the pit stops.
Leclerc had dominated the first stint, pulling out a six-second lead over
Piastri in 15 laps, and looked in control.
Piastri made his stop a lap before Leclerc, and somehow the
gap came down to 1.5 seconds - Leclerc said Ferrari would have to look into how
he had incurred such an unusually large loss.
Two laps later, Piastri was on the Ferrari’s tail. And from
there he made an audacious, surprise attack into Turn One and grabbed the lead,
before spending the rest of the race holding the Ferrari at bay with a
masterclass of defensive driving. Finally, Leclerc’s challenge fell away when
his tyres cried 'enough' with three laps to go.
Piastri came from so far back to pass the Ferrari that, in
the car, Leclerc felt the McLaren was going to overshoot. Piastri wasn’t even
sure himself.
"I was pleasantly surprised that I actually made the
corner," Piastri said. "It was a high-risk, high-commitment move, but
that’s what I needed to do to try and win the race because, you know, I wasn't
really going to be that keen to finish second. So I had to try."
On the McLaren pit wall, Stella was just as impressed.
"My instinct was: 'He is going to go long,'"
Stella said. "I wanted to emphasise the precision and execution to be on
the apex kerb in corner one.
"I was surprised, but Oscar is always surprising us
with his talent and ability, and today he gave also a demonstration of his
mental strength.
"He drove like a driver that has a lot of experience
and has been under this kind of pressure before, who can look with one eye on
the mirror and one on the braking. And he did it with great precision and
pretty controlled.
"Phenomenal driver, brilliant drive."
Verstappen’s lead ‘is still decent’
The co-ordination at McLaren was the kind of teamwork they
had come into the weekend planning, if not quite the way they expected.
In the days before Baku, Stella revealed in an exclusive
interview with OceanNewsUK that McLaren had agreed with the drivers that Piastri
would help Norris in his bid to overhaul Verstappen if the circumstances arose.
The yellows in qualifying put paid to that, and instead
Norris ended up helping Piastri. But Stella said they would review things again
before Singapore. It would be no surprise if Norris was to get the backing he
needs over the next seven races.
At Red Bull, Verstappen was in a matter-of-fact sort of
mood.
Was this a wasted opportunity to extend his lead over
Norris, he was asked?
"Yeah, it is, but you can also turn it around," he
said. "I think they could have done a better job as well."
How did he feel about losing the constructors’ championship
lead?
"It is never nice to see that. It didn’t help what
happened with Checo and Carlos. I am sure we can do better. The party is not
over yet. We will try to get that back."
And his thoughts on the drivers’ championship?
"They need to have a perfect end to the year," he
said. "The gap is still decent."
Norris, for his part, does not like to talk about the
drivers’ championship. He says he is just taking it one race at a time. But he
understands the significance of McLaren’s achievement in getting to where they
are.
"The team are giving us a car that can go out and
win," he said. "Think back to the first race of the year - we were
behind Mercedes. And now we are a long way ahead of them.
"They have done a good job. We have done an amazing job
to catch Red Bull. To be outscoring and outpacing them and to be the top team
in F1 is something we should be very proud of."
