Lando Norris said he should have fought his team mate Oscar Piastri harder when he lost the lead to him on the first lap of the Italian Grand Prix.
Piastri swept around the outside of the pole-winner at the Roggia chicane on the first lap of the race. As well as losing a position to his team mate, Norris’ poor exit from the corner allowed Charles Leclerc to take advantage.
Speaking in the press conference after the race, Norris said he should have “braked a bit later,” but admitted that would have put the two McLaren cars in a risky situation.
“Sometimes it’s easier said than done. Oscar obviously braked on the limit and gave me space. It was just about enough. I did my best to avoid anything else happening at the time.
“But at the same time, if I brake two metres later, you don’t know and you can’t predict. Two metres later and it could easily have been a crash. So it’s a tough one.
“The easiest thing is just to brake way later and force him off and kind of treat it like [anyone] else. I obviously took it easy. I saw we had a massive gap behind, so maybe I was just a bit too much on the cautious side and paid the price.”
However Piastri pointed out that under F1’s racing rules, because he had drawn fully alongside Norris on the outside of the corner, Norris had to leave him room.
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“I braked later and got around the outside,” he said. “There wasn’t really much more to it than that.
“We both got through unscathed. I knew once I hit the brakes, I kind of got ahead a bit and I knew I was entitled to stay on the outside.
“Ultimately, for 38 laps of that race, it put me in a race-winning position. So for me, it was just a good first lap.”
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2024 Italian Grand Prix
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