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Lando Norris described his Italian Grand Prix drive as “one of my best in Formula 1” in terms of how he handled the race.
Norris finished seventh but felt he should have been fifth ahead of Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton but for several setbacks beyond his control.
Three factors conspired against Norris in the race. He got off to a poor start thanks to not being able to start on the grid, had a slow first pit stop that cost him crucial seconds, then made a pit stop during the late safety car that sacrificed a place to Sergio Perez , which he never had a chance to take back thanks to the race not restarting.
Norris lined up third on the grid, having set the seventh fastest time, thanks to penalties dropping faster cars behind him. However, any chance of holding that position was eliminated when his team realized there was a problem accessing the launch map shortly before the start of the formation round.
“We’re not on the launch map,” Norris was told over the radio. “We can’t get the launch card on, so you can’t do anything about it. So the pre-launch will be difficult and you will have to control it.”
Norris stalled at the start and was immediately jumped by Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly, Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen. He even briefly fell behind F1 debutant Nyck de Vries’ Williams, but got back in front under braking for the harassment.
“Nothing I could have done,” Norris said of the problem. “It is only settings for the launch that you must have, and you cannot adjust.
“I was expecting something bad. When the lights go out, you have to react and you feel like you’ve got it going, but [you go backwards].
“It is something that has never happened [before] and hopefully it will never happen again.”
That left Norris in seventh, but he was able to reclaim sixth from Alonso in a move which he started at the second chicane and then finished at Lesmo 1.
At this point, three of the five cars ahead of Norris – Charles Leclerc, Verstappen and George Russell – were not concerned about him as they had a large pace advantage and track position. But Ricciardo and Gasly in front were overcome. He also had to cover Alonso, something he achieved but not without a mistake as he temporarily let Alonso past when he went off at the first chicane after failing to make the most of the VSC restart.
Gasly, suffering from front lock and struggling for traction, fell at the end of the 18th. lap. AlphaTauri lost about a second in that stop thanks to a slow front-left shift, making it certain that McLaren would have to bring Ricciardo in to cover the undercut.
But Norris was left out and opted for a long stint on his starting media. He pitted at the end of 35. lap, alongside Valtteri Bottas, the last runner to head for the pits, with this stint the source of his pride in how he handled the race.
“I went extremely long on the first stay,” Norris said.
“I would say it was probably one of my best races in Formula 1 in terms of management and patience with things and so on. One of the best I have definitely done this year, almost in Formula 1.”
During the build-up to the pit stop, Ricciardo had been instructed to hold Gasly fractionally – by as little as a tenth of a second per lap. lap – to ensure Norris had a big enough gap to get ahead. This was a logical move as it ensured McLaren could finish in front with both cars. Ricciardo did his job, but the team didn’t.
Norris’ pit stop to switch from medium to soft took two or three seconds longer than it should have, meaning Ricciardo blasted past and approached the chicane, with Gasly overtaking him through Turn 1. Hamilton then passed Norris and Gasly through Curva Grande.
The slow pit stop ensured Hamilton beat Norris, although it would have been difficult to keep him behind.
“Whether he would have passed me after a few laps, it’s very possible,” Norris said. “But we would have had a run and an opportunity.
“Perhaps I could have hung on until the safety car? So fifth was where we should have been today, but we ended up seventh.”
Norris easily passed Gasly, with Ricciardo ordered to let him pass. That dropped him back to seventh, which was sixth when Perez made another pit stop.
Perez was coming up on Norris when the safety car was deployed to recover Ricciardo’s stricken car. McLaren opted to bring Norris in for a new set of softer ones, ceding position to Perez in the hope of taking it back. But when the race did not start again, it ended up in seventh place.
“We probably should have finished fifth today so I’m a bit disappointed,” Norris said.
“Extremely bad launch due to incorrect settings. Nothing I could have done differently really. And then a bad pit stop that probably cost us the position for Lewis.”
McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl admitted that “it could have been possible” to take fifth, but took the positives of McLaren outscoring Alpine.
“We had a problem with the settings at the start which lost Lando a lot of positions, but he came back strong,” Seidl said.
“Even after losing the position to Fernando at the virtual safety car restart, we were actually able to just overtake him back on track which was encouraging to see because we were expecting a lot more problems in terms of pace with our car this weekend .So that was very encouraging.
“And at the pit stop, unfortunately, despite having a really good pit stop this year, we had one of five seconds with Lando, who then put him right in the traffic with Gasly, Lewis and Daniel. He couldn’t enjoy the free air that we should have after the pit stop.
“So not a perfect race. There are always things to learn to prove and that’s what we will try to do for Singapore.”
Initial harassment aside, it was a strong run for Norris – albeit not a perfect one. But it was strong enough to have given him the chance to beat one or two faster cars that were out of position.
“Seventh doesn’t feel like it accomplishes much for what I feel like I did, but that’s life,” Norris said.
“It happens and we will learn from it and move forward.”
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