Lando Norris had to settle for second at the Japanese Grand Prix after failing to catch Max Verstappen, with the reigning F1 champion picking up his first win of the season. However, Norris has been told he made a big error as he attempted to leapfrog Verstappen during the race.
Norris and Verstappen ended up pitting at the same, with McLaren delivering a faster pit stop than Red Bull. As the two drivers emerged from the pit lane, Norris attempted an overtake but Verstappen did not yield any room.
As a result, Norris ended up driving onto the grass at the pit exit and ended up losing crucial seconds. And racing driver Alice Powell believes Norris could have gone on to win the race had he not made that mistake.
“That was perfection from Max Verstappen, as he said. He hasn’t got the fastest car underneath him and we didn’t expect him to win this race,” Powell told BBC Radio 5 Live. “I think Lando Norris will be thinking that he should have slotted right behind Verstappen [on the pit-stop exit].
“He had a faster pit stop by a second compared to Verstappen. It could have been a different story to this race if Norris did slot in behind, he would have been only a couple of tenths behind down into Turn One.”
Reflecting on the race, Norris admitted Verstappen “deserved” his victory. “Max drove a good race today, no mistakes, and the pace was too similar today to do anything more,” Norris told reporters.
“Long race, a lot of pushing. It was a flat-out race from start to finish – tough, but just not enough today. Nothing special that we had that could get Max on. They were quick, and no mistakes like I said, so he deserved it.”
And when asked if he felt that mistakes had been made during the pit incident, Norris replied: “I don’t know. I probably should have tried to undercut, I think. The thing is there’s always the Safety Car risk and so forth.
“I think I could have gone longer because I don’t think I would have lost position. So that wasn’t off the cards, but yeah, I think we probably should have just tried to run the card and then tried something different.
“But it just wasn’t today. So yeah, things we’ll talk about. Honestly, I think the undercut is not easy here because the Hard is not mega in the first sector.
“So whether that even would have worked, I’m unsure. And Max still always had a little buffer to me. So even if I did have a good out lap, I don’t think it was enough to probably get past anyway.”
The Bahrain Grand Prix will take place this weekend and Norris is expecting Verstappen to put in another impressive performance there. “Max is doing a good job and Red Bull seemed to maybe have caught up a little bit,” he added.
“But they’ve also not been that bad the whole season. When you look at Australia, he was fighting for a win. When you look at China, he wasn’t miles away. And this weekend he’s done very good. So I expect him to be challenging us every weekend.”
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