“It still blows my mind,” Lando Norris talks about his ‘surprise’ podium finish in Imola
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Lando Norris' podium in Imola
Lando Norris has single-handedly kept the McLaren F1 team in the fight for the fourth position in the Constructors Championship and the Brit has talked about how his podium in Imola came as a welcome surprise for the papaya-colored team.
Imola was the first European race of the current campaign and the young Lando Norris under treacherous wet conditions was able to land his MCL36 in P3 at the end of Qualifying and come Sunday, was further able to keep hold of a podium place. The Brit also managed a P5 finish in the Sprint race between the two events.
The 22-year-old for one moment was looking set for a front-row start but his hopes of that crumbled away after a minute error, however, despite the setback, Lando on race day was able to keep his bearings together to finish P3 ahead of the potent Ferrari and Mercedes duo.
He feels that his team’s package on merit was not good enough to be in the top 10 at the end of the Grand Prix in Imola and while dwelling over his out-of-the-blue result, Lando said, “I still don’t know how I got a podium with the car that we had.”
“It still blows my mind, considering how much quicker many of the other cars were. Like now, when I think of it, I think it’s probably one of my best podiums.”
Lando Norris believes that on the pure pace he would have ended up around P15
“[In] wet qualifying, it was a pretty awesome lap in qualifying, but when you see the speed of the Alfa Romeo, it was like, half a second a lap quicker than me in the race.”
“If we did a race of just pure pace, I’d probably be like 15th or something, but I finished on the podium. It makes it that bit better.”
McLaren since their surprise podium has been coming up with upgrades regularly and Norris especially has been able to churn out hard-fought points finishes for the team every now and then.
The Brit after 13 rounds, has got 76 points to his name in the Drivers Championship and has proved the best among the rest of the pack barring the Mercedes, Ferrari, and, Red Bull drivers.
Moreover, Lando is pretty pleased with how his team has bounced back after the terrible evening they had during the first race of the season in Bahrain, where after seeing the team’s exploits, the pundits were doubting their ability to at least fight in the midfield.
While talking about it Lando said, “It was good to see that we made some improvements, we were going in the right direction, and that always gives you more motivation, more hope, and it’s something you look forward to in the future.”
“That was definitely a good thing, and just good to see that we could turn things around fairly quickly.”
McLare this year, is in a straight-up dog fight with the Alpine F1 team over the fourth position in the Constructors Championship, and considering that they are behind the French outfit at the moment, the upcoming second leg of the season has the potential to produce massive fireworks.
The two teams are going to throw everything at their disposal and it will be fascinating to see who would be able to get the bragging rights at the end of the season.
Also read: Belgian GP 2021: How George Russell wowed everyone with an incredible P2 start
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)