Yesterday at 10:10
Lando Norris has revealed that he lacked belief his Hungarian Grand
Prix one-stop method would work for the "majority" of his final
stint before going on to win for the first time on an alternate
strategy. The Briton made a poor start at the Hungaroring and fell
to fifth by the end of the first lap, before finding his route
forward blocked momentarily behind Fernando Alonso initially, and
then primarily, George Russell. It caused Norris to become detached
from the top two, resulting in a different plan in a bid to rescue
significant points. A two-stop was conducted by the leaders;
however, Norris managed to nurse his second set of tyres for a
staggering 39 laps to win his fifth race of the season. It did not
come easily following his only pit-stop, as the McLaren driver was
hunted down by team-mate Oscar Piastri. The pair had an intense
battle in the closing laps, where the Australian almost went into
the back of Norris on lap 69. Norris narrowly held on to reduce
Piastri's title advantage to just nine points, in what the
25-year-old judged as his first F1 victory achieved by an alternate
strategy. Asked if it was the most satisfying victory of his
career, Norris told the media, including RacingNews365 : "I think
it's one of the first ones I've won in probably this manner. "I've
not won many races, so most circumstances are still new, but I
think it's the first one where doing a completely alternate
strategy to most, giving myself that opportunity, worked out. "I
think there have been some others where going long in the first
stint, Miami, then getting the safety car, things like that have
helped me on the luck side. There was not really any of that. "So,
I think the most rewarding from 'Let's try to do something
different' and it working out, which was a good one. It's a tough
strategy to do, but it worked out. That's the most important
thing. "And, honestly, I didn't really think it was going to work
for the majority of that second stint. But with every lap, I kind
of gained more confidence that it was going to be closer and
closer. So, yeah, definitely a rewarding one."
