Lando Norris surged from 17th on the grid to finish 5th at the Mexican Grand Prix with one of the drives of the season, but the McLaren star was left furious with some of his rivals, accusing them of poorly calculated moves at the race starts.
The British driver endured a miserable qualifying session on Saturday, ending the session in P19 with only Logan Sargeant – who failed to set a valid lap time – behind him. However, Norris flexed his muscles on Sunday, carving through the field to beat the likes of George Russell and team-mate Oscar Piastri.
However, Norris was frustrated with some of his rivals’ conduct at the two race starts. The second of these went by without major drama, but at the first Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc came together, ending the home hero’s race prematurely.
“I had to avoid a very big crash because people were coming across and not realising they can be three-abreast,” Norris said after crossing the line to secure a P5 finish at the Mexican GP.
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“I avoided two extremely big crashes, one would have been very nasty. I think more self-awareness in some drivers would be great. That’s not why I lost out, I lost out because of a bad start.
“When I came over the line for the first time, I got told to cool the engine, so I couldn’t maybe push as much as I wanted to at times. But in then the times I could, which was a lot of the second stint, I would have better pace in almost everyone apart from Hamilton and that was very encouraging for us.”
Despite his frustrations with the unruliness of the race starts, Norris was extremely impressed with his efforts on the whole on Sunday. With three races remaining on the 2023 calendar and momentum swinging his way, he’s now just 14 points behind both Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso in the standings.
“It was enjoyable,” Norris told Sky Sports F1 after the chequered flag. “I didn’t think I would get back to P5, so encouraging pace from the car. The pace was very strong. I was a long way out of position. Boxing onto the hard and undercutting seven or eight cars was a nice thing.”
