13/06/2024
NEWS STORY
Lando Norris is critical of himself and his team after missing out on what he believes was a golden opportunity to further close the gap to Red Bull.
The Briton took the lead from pole-man George Russell on Lap 22 but, unlike Miami, the subsequent Safety Car did not play in his favour. Pitting a lap after the majority of his rivals he rejoined the race in second behind Max Verstappen and Russell.
As conditions improves in the latter stages of the race, he retook the lead when Verstappen and Russell both pitted on Lap 45. Two strong laps before he made his own second stop meant that Norris was able to rejoiing behind Verstappen but ahead of Russell where he remained until the chequered flag.
However, speaking a race end, Norris insisted that a win had been possible.
"We should've won the race today and we didn't," he said. "It's frustrating. We had the pace today, it was pretty dry at the end, and it turned out that it didn't matter too much.
"We didn't do a good enough job as a team to box when we should've done and not get stuck behind the safety car," he added. "I don't think it was an unlucky kind of thing, not the same as Miami, this was just making a wrong call.
"It's on me, and it's on the team," he continued, "and it's something we'll discuss after. We're at a level now where we're not satisfied with second. The target is to win and we didn't do that, so it's frustrating. But a tough race and to still end up in second when it could always be worse is still a good result.
"Staying out on the intermediate tyre helped me have a chance against George," admitted the Briton. "I overcut him, then I didn't do a good enough job afterwards and he was way quicker than us on the dry and on the hard tyres, so that was completely the right call and a good decision from us to stay out, it gave me a lot of lap time.
"It's not the timing of the Safety Car," he insisted, "I had enough time to box and we didn't box, so it was a mistake on us as a team and something we didn't do a good enough job with."
However, the fact is that McLaren leaves Canada just 40 points behind Ferrari, which had a nightmare weekend. And while the McLaren appears to work well on most tracks the Ferrari doesn't.
"I look forward to every track now because every place we seem to be performing well," said Norris. "Mercedes have improved and pretty much been the quickest car all weekend, so I think it was a positive we finished ahead of them.
"To always be the quicker car and the quicker team is a nice thing and it's rewarding thing, but if they're quick in the next two races and they join the fight with Ferrari and Red Bull and us, then it's only going to make our lives more exciting, tricky and stressful because there will be eight cars which are fighting up there and challenging us."