“I’m not here to win sprint races” · RaceFans

Lando Norris says he intended to return a sprint race win to Oscar Piastri ever since his team mate handed victory to him in Brazil.

The McLaren driver started the race from pole position and led 18 of the 19 laps at Losail. But coming out of the final corner on the last lap, Norris slowed to allow Piastri to take the chequered flag first.

Piastri moved over at the last sprint race at Interlagos to give the win to Norris while his team mate was still in contention for the drivers’ championship. However Max Verstappen clinched that title last weekend.

Norris had deliberately managed his pace out front over the sprint race to keep Piastri within DRS range of him to neutralise the DRS advantage of George Russell who was challenging the second McLaren behind. Norris said he was holding “a little bit” of performance to try and help his team mate.

“But we scored a one-two,” Norris said. “That’s what we were aiming for today. We’ve got maximum points, so we’re happy. We’re happy as a team. We’ve executed things perfectly.

“I think the pace was good. I probably could have pushed a little bit more than what I was doing, but we wanted to keep the others behind, so we tried to help out and not let George get too close. So we did our job and that’s the main thing.”

Radio messages between Norris and his race engineer Will Joseph indicated that McLaren had discussed a potential swap between the two cars prior to the race. On the penultimate lap, Norris asked Joseph “is the next lap the last lap?” to which he was told “yes, but don’t worry about that.

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Despite being told “finish in this order, we’re happy,” by Joseph approaching the final corner on the final lap, Norris pulled to the side out of the final corner and lifted off just enough to allow Piastri through while keeping ahead of Russell behind – all three cars finishing within half a second.

“It was probably closer than what I was wanting,” Norris admitted. “But I’ve planned to do it since Brazil.

“It’s just what I thought was best. It was probably a little bit sketchy. The team told me not to do it, but I thought I could get away with it and we did.

“Honestly, I don’t mind. I’m not here to win sprint races. I’m here to win races and a championship, but that’s not gone to plan. So I did the best we could and I look forward to tomorrow.”