31/10/2023
NEWS STORY
McLaren boss Andrea Stella ranks Lando Norris's Mexican performance as one of the best he's been involved in, comparing it with Fernando Alonso at Valencia in 2012.
Though not as dramatic as Sergio Perez, Norris's Sunday afternoon was quite the roller-coaster. Starting from 17th on the grid he subsequently worked his way up to eighth before Kevin Magnussen's crash brought out the Safety Car.
Pitting immediately after Magnussen's crash Norris dropped to 10th, however at the restart a poor getaway dropped him back down to 14th.
Undaunted, having switched to mediums, he once again fought his way back through the field eventually finding himself behind George Russell.
Warned that the Mercedes driver is "all or nothing" and to "just have patience", Norris eventually nailed Russell in a brilliant move to claim fifth just 5 laps from the end.
"In fairness we were having exactly this conversation on the pit wall as his race engineer Will Joseph turned to me and said to me that's one of the best of Lando. I said, 'Will, that's one of the best at all'," said team boss Andrea Stella when asked if this had been Norris's best ever drive.
"Overtaking, so many overtakings... in Mexico, where yesterday if you read the quotes everyone is saying it's so difficult to overtake, while managing PU temperatures, having to do lift and coast. I'm just impressed. One of the best races for a driver that I've been part of, let's say."
Indeed, the former Ferrari engineer compared Norris's performance to that of Fernando Alonso at Valencia in 2012.
"This race made me think of Valencia 2012, where at the time we started 12th, and we won the race," said the Italian.
However, Stella conceded that it could have been even better but for Saturday's errors which left Norris starting from so far down the grid.
"You know, on one side we are excited, having seen this kind of masterpiece, on the other side like Lando said on the in-lap, like, guys let's do a good job on Saturday and we can fight for podiums, so you know the pace was there to fight for podiums.
"What I'm trying to say, is that there's a little element of frustration, but at the same time if you asked me yesterday I would not have thought we could overtake so many cars. So I'd rather take the positives out of this race and hope that the entire team at the factory and the fans receive the same sort of message: we are there, we don't give up, we are competitive, but we need to do a better job overall the whole race weekend."
"It's very special," said Norris. "It wasn't from 20th to 10th. It was from 14th to fifth. It was against George and Alex and Oscar and Daniel. So, it was against some quick guys and smart guys.
"But I played it well," he continued, "I played the overtakes well, I put them into awkward positions, and I managed to get past them all very quickly, which allowed me to end up in P5.
"My main thing was just staying out of trouble. And it all paid off," he admitted. "It's enjoyable racing like this, and I wish I could be a little bit further up. I think we could have challenged for some silverware."
Other than Russell, on his rise through the field Norris had enjoyed a number of battles, asked to choose a favourite move he was in no doubt.
"Probably the one on Daniel, he's the late braker! We must have been very, very close. I braked earlier than I think he thought I would. So, then he braked and I just got off the brake and got him on the outside.
"Whenever you're doing these overtakes, and having to prepare exits and all of it, you enjoy the whole thing, so I don't really mind who it is. It's just they're all good.
"The restart was tough," he admitted. "We just didn't get it right. My first start was good, but the second one not so good. I think we struggled a little bit too much with the power unit temperatures and things like that, so I couldn't get the tyres and things in the correct window for the restart.
"I paid the price a little bit. I then had to avoid some incidents, and I had to back out quite a bit down the straight, which could have gone a lot worse.
"But after that, I just stayed calm and got the tyres in a good window and went from there. It was enjoyable, I didn't think I'd get back to P5. So encouraging pace from the car."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Mexico City here.