Lando Norris secured victory in Saturday’s Sprint event in Sao Paulo thanks to a McLaren team order that forced Oscar Piastri to hand over the lead of the short form race.
After starting from pole, Piastri took a commanding lead and dominated proceedings for most of the 24-lap sprint, only allowing Norris through in the closing stages of the mad dash.
McLaren called for the swap in response to a potential Safety Car deployment or VSC following Nico Hulkenberg’s on-track stoppage, which allowed the Woking-based outfit to maximize both the team and Norris’ points haul.
While the Briton was grateful for his teammate’s sacrifice, he admitted to not being proud of taking the necessary win under such circumstances.
“I’m not proud about it, but we worked well as a team together, so I thank Oscar,” said Norris. “But we’ve done a great job as a team.
“Today was the result that we wanted. Oscar deserved it, but we’re doing what we have to do. So I thank him and the team. We had great pace so I’m looking forward to qualifying and the race tomorrow.”
For much of the race, the McLaren drivers controlled their pace at the front, with Piastri maintaining just enough speed to keep Norris within DRS range, shielding him from the pressure of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen close behind.
“It was just kind of like yo-yoing a little bit,” Norris explained. “I would catch up and then drop back and catch up. It’s just the dirty air costs you a lot of lap time.
“I felt [I was] a bit quicker, but I couldn’t pass at the time. But I felt good.
“I think we were clearly quicker than the guys behind. It’s just difficult in a sprint race like this to know how much to manage and push, that kind of thing. But we executed it well.”
Quizzed on handing a sure win to his teammate, Piastri said that knew what he was in for from the outset.
“I mean, it’s not as fun as winning but I know the position that we're in,” said the Aussie.
“We've been talking about this for months now, and this is really the first time that we've had to enforce it [team orders].
“So yes, I would have preferred to have won but again, it's a sprint race. It's the same points for the team. And being realistic, I don't have much to fight for in the drivers’ standing so, we knew this is something that that could and probably would happen at some point. But, yeah, I was fine with it.”
As the plan to swap positions became evident, Norris appeared frustrated with his team’s tardy execution of the order.
“We spoke through many different scenarios,” he said. “It was tough to do it much earlier because the guys behind were pretty close.
“I think there was one lap, but it's always hard to suddenly plan that and execute it well.
“We did the best job we could. We want both cars up there, and, of course, the safety car put out a little bit of threat. There's always those risks, so we plan for it, and we secured it.”
In the Constructors’ standings, McLaren extended its lead over Ferrari to 35 points, while Norris reduced his gap to Verstappen in the Drivers’ standings to 45 points.
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