Norris explains frantic off-track moment behind safety car

McLaren driver Lando Norris had to settle for a ninth-place finish after a dramatic run off the track during a late-race safety car period. Starting from fifth on the grid, the Briton was among those who chose to bolt on the medium tires when the race finally got underway following a heavy rain delay and a suspended start procedure.

Those initial medium tires proved to be a struggle in the mixed conditions, dropping the world champion backwards from his starting slot. An early safety car, triggered by a stoppage for Cadillac driver Valtteri Bottas, offered a chance to pit that both Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri took advantage of. Piastri had notably swapped his medium tires for intermediates at the end of the first lap.

Further drama arrived in the latter stages of the race during another safety car phase when Mercedes driver George Russell pulled to the side of the track on the main straight to retire his machine, bunching the field up behind him. That sudden stack-up caught Norris completely off guard. Taking avoiding action around those ahead, he ran off the track into the gravel and dropped back to 11th before fighting his way back to ninth on the restart. Piastri brought his car home in his original starting position of sixth.

Speaking to the media after the race, Norris conceded that starting on the medium compound had been the wrong call. While a group of drivers tried the strategy based on laps to the grid that made it look convincing, the intermediate tire performance had proved deceiving. The 26-year-old admitted they had never driven or pushed on the intermediate tire before, making it hard to gauge its true grip level. Although they wanted to take a gamble, he acknowledged he probably should have boxed at the end of the first lap.

Following his excursion, Norris was summoned by the stewards for driving erratically under safety car conditions, leaving the track and re-joining unsafely, and overtaking another car behind the safety car, ultimately receiving a reprimand.

“I swore a lot,” Norris admitted. “It's just I couldn't see from the angle and, from where I was, how much everyone had stopped because of George on the inside. So by the time I kind of looked at George and looked back, I could see them. But it's hard when you're directly behind to see if they're going 100, 200, or 10, and they were going 10, so I just got completely caught out. I guess it's my fault at the end of the day, so I was just unlucky with it. Everyone just checked up so much and I just got screwed over by it, that's all.”