The fact only one of the two drivers who collided while fighting for the lead in the Austrian Grand Prix finished the race appears to have been down to luck.
Max Verstappen and Lando Norris drove back to the pits on punctured tyres following their collision on lap 64 of the race.
However Norris suffered more extensive damage to his tyre than Verstappen did, which tore away a large part of the McLaren’s floor, and led his team to retire him from the race. Verstappen also sustained floor damage but was able to continue after Red Bull replaced his tyre, and went on to finished fifth.
After the race Norris suspected he might also have been able to continue in the race had he “got back to the pits in a better way” by driving slower. However Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra believes the tyre came apart in the way it did because of the way it was cut.
“I don’t think the speed has really influenced the tyre behaviour in that case,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans. “So basically Max was just lucky and that’s it.”
“In my opinion it was just a matter of the point where the tyre was damaged,” Berra added. “I think Max was more lucky.”
Although McLaren have been able to replace the damaged parts for this weekend’s race, Norris expects the time spent repairing his car will have a knock-on effect later in the championship, as money spent repairing damage comes out of what they can spend under the budget cap.
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“Everything’s okay, it’s more just like longer-term stuff it’s impacted more than just this weekend,” he said. “We have some spare floors that were already damaged before, which we’ve been able to repair and kind of get things ready for.”
This weekend’s race concludes the first run of three consecutive events this year. Norris said McLaren ensured they had a stock of parts to cope with any damage.
“The team have done an amazing job to get things ready. We knew with three races in a row, easily things can go wrong and you can easily have a lot of damage.
“It’s not hard to damage a floor in the first place. You can run over an exit kerb and it can be damaged quite easily.
“The team have done a good job to make sure we’ve had enough and we’ve got some more for this weekend and some repaired ones. Maybe not in a perfect place, but a sidepod and brake ducts, all these kinds of…
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