Formula 1

Norris wants more battles at the front after 'pretty perfect' Imola weekend

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Lando Norris hopes for more battles with Formula 1's leading teams after claiming his second career podium at Imola.

The McLaren driver was livid with himself after his fastest lap in qualifying, which would have put him third on the grid, was deleted as he fractionally exceeding track limits at Piratella.

But starting down in seventh, Norris rallied in the rain on Sunday, making his way through the field to run as high as second before being passed by Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps.

“On the whole, I’m very pleased with myself and the team as well. Apart from Q3, it was a pretty perfect weekend I want to say," he said afterwards.

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“I was disappointed yesterday so to come back to third today after a pretty eventful race for myself and I’m sure the others as well, was rewarding for myself but more importantly the team.

“I think days like that [Sunday at Imola] are always the ones we look forward to because anything can happen,” he later explained.

“It can go terribly wrong for you, as it did for a lot of other people, but it can also go very right like it did for me.

“So I think one of the things I’ve got better at from the last year and over the years is reflecting on Saturday, learning from the mistakes or things I didn’t do right, and then seeing Sunday as a new day and a new challenge to try and get a podium and some better results.”

Contrary to most, McLaren opted to put Norris on the soft tyres following the red flag, a decision he believes paid off.

“It was tough!” Norris said. “I wasn’t so confident to get the tyres working and it’s not an easy track to overtake on, Lewis might say otherwise, but I think it was the right decision.

“I pretty much started saving the tyres from lap one after the restart knowing that the last couple of laps were going to be pretty tough, and they were.

"Especially with Lewis at the end, a lot of focus in the last couple of corners, getting the deployment right, using your battery in the right way, so I was trying to save up as much as possible. But in the end, I didn’t have enough rear tyre out of the last two corners and the chicane to hold him behind, but I tried.

“It was a nice little battle. It’s nice to be racing unusual cars I guess for us - a Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferraris and things like that. It’s nice to be going up against them so hopefully, we can have some more of that in the future.”

Having followed P4 in Bahrain with a P3 at Imola, Norris currently sits third in the Drivers' Championship behind Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

“Lando is flying at the moment, he’s definitely made the next step as a driver also,” McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl told Sky Sports.

“Already in Bahrain, you could see that he definitely made the next step, as a person. He digested last season with his engineering team in the right way.

“It’s normal also that these young guys make steps, in the first years they have to make it or they will never make it to the top but it’s just great how he’s pulling it off.

“He has the confidence to put the laps in and what he did today was great.”

After the race, former teammate Carlos Sainz also highlighted the bromance is alive and well as he praised Norris' performance.

“It looked like this weekend Lando did a very good job of exploiting the whole car potential,” said the Spaniard who finished fifth.

“He was on it the whole weekend, especially from Saturday onwards and he did a good race.”

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