It took 110 races for Lando Norris to win his first Grand Prix. The 24-year-old Englishman from Glastonbury brings McLaren back to the top step of the podium in Miami after Daniel Ricciardo’s latest success in the 2021 Italian GP. Lando drove a masterpiece race and, perhaps, he would not have prevailed without the safety car that decided the result on lap 28, due to the accident with which Kevin Magnussen with the Haas knocked out Logan Sargeant with the Williams, forcing the race direction to neutralize the race. Norris was able to make his only pit stop on lap 29 in half the time, while Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc had already stopped.
The news is that Norris beat Max on the track and gave Andrea Stella’s first success as team principal. McLaren brought an important package of updates to the track in the USA: judging by the result of the Sprint Race and qualifying it seemed like a risky choice, but the Woking team unleashed the true potential of the MCL38 evolution in the race, keeping an impossible pace for everyone. Starting fifth on the grid, Norris built a perfect race that will remain engraved in history, just like the “dive” that the Englishman made on the mechanics in parc fermé by flying over the barriers.
Red Bull is humiliated: Max perhaps loses on the day when the one destined for the podium was Adrian Newey who left the Milton Keynes team. Norris broke the world champion team’s basket: Lando was dominant with the “papaya”. On an anomalous track like that of Miami, McLaren gave a sign that the technical update represents a big leap forward which will also force Red Bull to work, also because in Imola it will be Ferrari’s turn to field the SF-24 evolution.
Verstappen sincerely complimented Norris and accepted the defeat with a smile: the entire F1 Circus welcomed with real pleasure the first success of the British boy who had collected 8 second places and 15 podiums. He needed to unblock himself and, finally, he succeeded: the F1 world championship opens up a new scenario. Max has a 35-point lead in the drivers’ championship over Sergio Perez, but the Mexican with fifth place without breathing down Charles Leclerc’s neck who has moved up to three points behind Checo who now has to start worrying about the Ferrari driver
Perez, suspected of an early start, risked a strike at the first corner: Sergio missed the braking point and went straight ahead, miraculously avoiding Verstappen’s rear end and the two Ferraris that were oncoming. It worked out well for him, because it could have been a very bad accident, and then he never had the pace to hope to do better than a mediocre fifth place.
Lando Norris’ McLaren has broken the balance. Norris second in China behind the Dutchman, takes the winner’s trophy. Behind Verstappen, however, there is a Ferrari that finishes with Charles Leclerc, third, just over two seconds behind the RB20, followed by Carlos Sainz in fourth. The Scuderia remained the only top team not to have brought any technical innovations and, despite a standard car, remained close behind Red Bull. The Monegasque didn’t have the pace to worry Verstappen, but Imola could turn the season around, when the red team also plays its wild card. Sainz will have to report to the stewards for the contact with Oscar Piastri which damaged his front wing: it was a race accident, but the Australian ruined a race that could have led him to score important points. The boy demonstrated character: he led the race with authority and was not there at all by chance.
Lewis Hamilton’s sixth place with Mercedes was positive: the seven-time world champion started with the hard tires to score important points with a disappointing W15, given that George Russell, who was sixth on the grid, finished eighth. Between the two “Stars” a very concrete Yuki Tsunoda with the Racing Bulls slipped in, seventh, while Daniel Ricciardo, after fourth place in the race, finished the GP missing.
The points zone was completed by Fernando Alonso’s ninth place with Aston Martin and Esteban Ocon’s tenth. The Frenchman returns the honor to Alpine who finally erases the zero in the Constructors’ ranking, overtaking Williams and Sauber in one fell swoop. Kevin Magnussen only capitalized on penalties again after the ones he collected on Saturday: the time would have come to stop him for a GP…
Now the wait is for the GP of Made in Italy and Emilia Romagna.
#Norris #victory #McLaren #Miami #beat #Max
