The magic of Lando Norris
Lando Norris pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat, confirming that he is in a true state of grace that further legitimizes his World Championship title win last season. A lap that came almost out of nowhere, especially since in the first part of qualifying the Englishman had struggled and McLaren seemed resigned to a Saturday as the fourth force on track. Then, however, the magic, which the team principal Andrea Stella himself wanted to celebrate in the post-qualifying press conference, which FormulaPassion.it also attended: “I would say this was definitely one of the most impressive laps I have ever witnessed. I have been observing data and telemetry from 450 GPs and I must admit that, honestly, we were not performing at the level needed to secure pole position. At no point during the weekend had we shown that the car was capable of competing at the level of the best”.
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An imperfect lap nonetheless, but…
Until the monster lap that allowed Norris to beat Andrea Kimi Antonelli by just 11 thousandths. A very fast but still imperfect lap due to an obvious mistake that took Lando off the racing line in the last corner, causing him to waste an advantage that the team principal quantifies as over three tenths: “I think the most impressive thing is the fact that – adds Stella – he got pole position despite losing three and a half tenths in the last corner. Which means that, without this problem, it would have been a rather convincing pole position. But, at the same time, it was a consequence of pushing to the limit throughout the first part of the lap. What makes this lap unique, especially when looking at the telemetry, is the precision, the braking, the entry speed, the cornering, the power maintenance. Everything is executed with a truly unique level of precision”.
“So – adds Andrea Stella – congratulations to Lando, but also a big thank you to the team because, from the very first laps in free practice, we had a clear goal to improve performance in low-speed corners and on the curbs. We were behind in the first sector, in the slow sections, and for the drivers it was a difficult car to manage to extract a perfect lap. And even though there were glimpses of potential, it was extremely complicated to extract it but we kept trying session after session. Obviously in FP2 the problem (with the gearbox, ed.) caused the loss of the entire session time so I think this makes Lando’s qualifying work even more extraordinary offering us one of the most exceptional performances of his career”.
Stella and the tactical uncertainties for the GP
For the race, however, everything is still open and undecipherable despite the difficulty of overtaking. And not only because of the obvious uncertainties at the start, but also and above all because of tire management which, according to the Italian engineer, is still lacking: “On Friday the tires suffered a lot and graining appeared quickly. In this case there is also some doubt because the Softs have less, but this year we have seen that the harder compound does not necessarily have less graining. Mercedes showed the best resistance. We have no certainties, but we tend to have front graining faster than others, and this is an aspect to improve. It will be a race where we will have a lot to discover. Will it be one stop, two? We will have to be flexible and adapt strategies on the fly”. A thought for Norris, who meanwhile enjoys the magic in Q3.
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