Norris looking for ‘some magic’ to beat Piastri

Grand Prix of the Netherlands

Date: 31 August 2018 Start time for the race: 14:00 BST on Sunday

Lando Norris said he would be looking for some “magic” to try to beat McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri to victory in Sunday’s Grand Prix of the Netherlands.

Even though the Briton has won three of its previous four races, Piastri edged Norris by just 0.0112 seconds to take the lead in the championship.

Norris is concerned about his chances of winning the race because the twisty and constricting Zandvoort circuit makes it difficult to overtake.

“It will take some magic, some good strategy, or incredible tire saving or something,” said Norris.

Piastri couldn’t pass him despite closing on him on fresh tyres at the end of the race, which had won six races so far this season to Norris’ five.

Norris’s optimism about a repeat of his success in the Netherlands was unwarranted.

Not much I can do right now, he said, but it’s just a bummer (not to be on pole). Even with a lap of 0.01 seconds, that’s a small margin. Many of my chances are now gone because it is a track that is essentially impossible to overtake on, which makes it frustrating.

Throughout the entire weekend, Piastri had been lagged behind Norris, but constant improvement and striving to improve made it possible for him to gain advantage wherever it was important.

Both McLaren drivers are free to compete without team orders because of the potential for wet weather during the race.

That includes the option for the team to choose their own strategy when attempting to defeat their teammate, as Norris did in Hungary.

Andrea Stella, the team’s principal, stated that Piastri had not experienced any issues with the way Hungary had played out, and that the drivers were content to continue with this strategy.

“Both drivers, including Oscar,” acknowledged that racing has a certain degree of variability,” Stella said. There are “a lot of different scenarios that you can imagine and don’t always have your control over.”

And the Italian made it clear that Max Verstappen’s third-place finish would not affect their race. The Dutchman’s strong start would easily allow him to pass at least one McLaren driver in the first lap in the freestyle.

“We need to make sure we beat Max, who is 0.2secs away from us,” Stella said. “First thing we need to do is make sure that we do that in the interests of the team and Lando and Oscar.”

“First of all, we have to make sure we get the best result for the team, with Lando and Oscar finishing as expected, and McLaren is currently the fastest car, given the difficulties with overtaking and the possibility of some weather,” said McLaren.

We do have some guidelines for that when it comes to the options between our two drivers from a strategic perspective.

It’s always been within our rules, even though I’m not going to disclose what they are, based on what I’ve seen so far in terms of how the strategy has been used.

“So it’s perfectly acceptable that there are strategy deviations.

The strategy is not far between a one-and-a-two-stop in this situation, so I believe it will be interesting again for both the other drivers and the two McLaren drivers.

Lewis Hamilton, a Ferrari driver, improved this weekend after his struggles in Hungary, where he claimed he was “just useless” after qualifying 12th when team-mate Charles Leclerc was in pole position.

Leclerc and Hamilton place sixth and seventh, while Verstappen and Russell are fifth and fifth, with Isack Hadjar coming in fourth.

Hamilton had been a Leclerc champion throughout the weekend, but Hamilton came in behind by only 0.05 seconds in qualifying.

Hamilton continued, “I tried to approach the weekend in a slightly different way. a few adjustments before the weekend and before I even arrived. Although the car was a little unpredictable yesterday, we have made progress this weekend, so I’m grateful for that.

It’s definitely encouraging to see a positive outcome on my side of the garage, so I’m glad we’re there or somewhere else but not where we want to be. A track this length is incredibly slow, at 0.7 seconds. Because Charles was P1 last time, we must try to understand that.

“I’ve been trying to grow in confidence, and that’s what has happened.

It seems to have been one of the year’s most successful days, which has been attributed to some of the improvements made to my approach and process, which also makes it a little calmer overall.