Lando Norris denied his seventh place in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a missed opportunity.
The McLaren driver started and finished in the same position in Baku. Although he gained six points on team mate Oscar Piastri, who crashed out on the first lap, race winner Max Verstappen scored 19 more.
Norris said he did not think he could have finished any higher at Baku. “It was just too difficult to follow and overtake,” he told the official Formula 1 channel, “so it didn’t really matter how quick the car was.
“I think the car was good, but it was just too difficult to following and overtake. I couldn’t really do anything with strategy, so I don’t think we could have done anything more today.”
He started on the fourth row of the grid after a tricky qualifying session during which he lost time on his only Q3 lap when he hit a barrier. Norris later said it had been a mistake to run first out of those who left the pits at the end of the session.
In the grand prix he lost a place to Isack Hadjar at the start then dropped behind Charles Leclerc following a Safety Car period. Norris later re-passed Hadjar and overtook Leclerc after his pit stop. He finished close behind Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson having lost time due to a slow pit stop.
Norris said on Saturday he felt he missed no opportunities in qualifying and said on Sunday the same applied to his race.
“I did everything I can,” he said. “The opportunities were there, I maximise every single weekend like I can.
“It’s not a missed opportunity, every race is an opportunity and today we just weren’t good enough and made too many mistakes yesterday.”
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