A frustrated Lando Norris said his McLaren team “threw away” victory after bad decisions cost him the lead in Sunday’s British Grand Prix.
Seven days after he was forced to retire following a collision with Red Bull’s series leader and three-time champion Max Verstappen at the Austrian Grand Prix, the 24-year-old Briton said he was “fed up” with making excuses.
Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton won Sunday’s race at Silverstone for Mercedes ahead of Verstappen and Norris.
The result extended the Dutchman’s lead in the drivers’ title race to 84 points over Norris.
Norris was asked if McLaren had bungled their chances with poor decision-making, notably a delayed switch to soft tyres, instead of mediums, for the final sprint to the flag.
“I’ve heard that a lot lately,” said Norris,
“I hate saying it again, but so many things were going well and we threw it away at the final stop. So, one lap too late, but also I think that even had I boxed on the perfect lap, our decision to go on the softs was the wrong one.
“I think Lewis would still have won, no matter what, but two calls from our side cost us everything today. So for me, it’s pretty disappointing, especially here at Silverstone. I’m just fed up with making excuses.
“We weren’t quick enough here today and when it was dry the Mercedes was a lot quicker even if we were better in the slippery conditions.
“But there are still a lot of positives, so we need to keep working as a team even if we know we’ve thrown away something that should have been ours.”
Norris’s team-mate Oscar Piastri finished fourth, also frustrated by the way his race unfolded after he was left out one lap too long and dropped from race leader to sixth, a setback from which he was unable to recover.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez also complained of bad strategy after their teams called them in for intermediate tyres, anticipating a wet track, but they lost places and could not recover.
Leclerc, who was 14th, described his race as “worse than a nightmare”.
Carlos Sainz, who leaves Ferrari this year to make way for the incoming Hamilton finished fifth with solid, well-measured drives.
Perez under pressure to retain his seat, said his race had been “a total disaster” after finishing 17th.
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