Lando Norris has insisted he could have won the Canadian Grand Prix had his McLaren team called a crucial pit stop call more decisively, with the British driver emphatic that second place is no longer good enough for him or the team and that they must perform better.
Max Verstappen took the win for Red Bull in Montreal after a race of changing, wet and dry conditions, where Norris had taken the lead early on with some fearsome pace. However when a safety car was called McLaren did not pit him immediately and he lost time, dropping from first to third, losing an advantage he was unable to make back, before finishing in second.
When asked if he was frustrated he was blunt. “Yes, we should have won the race today and we didn’t,” he said. “Frustrating, we had the pace. We should have won today, simple as that. We didn’t do a good enough job as a team to box when we should have done and not get stuck behind the safety car.”
The McLaren again showed the real pace it has displayed in recent races as Norris demonstrated in passing Verstappen on track but the British driver is demanding race execution to match the car’s speed.
He took his first Formula One victory at the Miami GP earlier this season when a safety car intervention fell in his favour in Florida but he was unequivocal in stating what happened in Montreal had been an error rather than ill-fortune.
“I don’t think it was lucky or unlucky, it wasn’t the same as Miami,” he said. “This was just making a wrong call, it’s on me and on the team, it’s something we will discuss after.
“We should have won today. We are on the level now where we are not satisfied with a second, the target is to win and we didn’t do that.”
