04/08/2025 12:10
Lando Norris has explained how he responded to dropping to fifth on
the opening lap of the Hungarian Grand Prix, The McLaren driver
started from third and enjoyed a strong initial launch, but found
his path blocked by team-mate Oscar Piastri on the run down to the
first corner. That left him vulnerable and both George Russell and
Fernando Alonso swept around the outside, leaving him fifth by the
end of lap 1. Whilst the British driver was able to dispatch of the
Aston Martin quickly, the Mercedes proved trickier to negotiate.
However, it set him up to roll the dice with the alternate, and
ultimately winning, one-stop strategy. After prevailing in a
nail-biting fight to the finish over Piastri to claim his ninth
grand prix victory, slashing his F1 drivers' championship deficit
to nine points in the process, Norris relayed his experience of the
first lap at the Hungaroring. When asked what went through his head
when he slumped to fifth, the 25-year-old shared his communication
over team radio that occurred in response. "'Brilliant'," he
replied to media, including RacingNews365 . "That's actually what I
said over the line the first lap. "Because I did, I watched quite a
few videos of lap one to Turn 1. Clearly, it didn't work."
Expanding on how the opening moments of the race transpired, Norris
further detailed how it was more a case of bad luck with how things
unfolded on track than a case of making a wrong call off the line.
"My start was good," Norris said. "I think Charles' was pretty good
as well. Oscar then came over to the left, and I was kind of just
hoping both were going to be on the right. "I got a bit of a
slipstream on Oscar. I had to pull out to the right, but Oscar
could stay in the slipstream of Charles, which then gave him a bit
more speed again. "But at that point, it was hard to back out and
go to the left because I would have had to brake a bit." He branded
his misfortune the "worst-case scenario" whilst insisting that in
the grand scheme, he had little to "complain" about. "I mean, I'll
look back and review it and see what I could have done better," the
McLaren driver added. "I feel like I was more just unlucky with how
things panned out. "I think if we were to do it again, most of the
time things would turn out better than they did today. So, I think
it was just worst-case scenario. But my start was good, and I have
nothing to really complain about."
