Lando Norris stated victory on the Sao Paulo Grand Prix was for Gilles de Ferran after profitable his first win on the former McLaren sports activities director’s house race.
De Ferran was with McLaren from 2018 to 2021, and once more as an advisor from 2023 till his demise on the finish of the identical yr. Norris accomplished the dash weekend with victory at Interlagos and stated he could not get De Ferran out of his thoughts whereas he was main in entrance of the Brazilian crowd.
“I needed to work for it. I used to be pushing,” Norris stated. “It was an excellent race. I am joyful to win right here in Brazil. Nice course, nice followers, and this was for Gil, one among my mentors rising up a number of years in the past. This was for him. I am positive he could be very pleased with all of this, so I used to be desirous about that as I drove. It was an ideal, good weekend.”
Norris began from pole place in each races this weekend and earned most factors, however says it was not a straightforward consequence.
“Truthfully, I used to be fairly joyful all weekend,” he stated. “General it was an excellent day, an excellent weekend. I might say it was difficult. It wasn’t fully simple. It was nonetheless troublesome on the monitor, nevertheless it made issues higher.”
“I believe it was only a well-executed race. Good begin, good pit stops, good technique, respectable tempo… Right now’s tempo wasn’t nearly as good as I had hoped, so there have been some issues to contemplate, however in any other case I used to be within the lead in each session the place I wanted to be within the lead, and that is why I flew to Brazil.”
Norris received by greater than 10 seconds over Kimi Antonelli, however what caught his eye was the efficiency of Max Verstappen, who emerged from the pit lane to complete simply behind Antonelli in third place.
“It is an excellent win, however to be sincere, taking a look at Max’s pace at this time, it is fairly disappointing that we have been sooner,” he stated. “That is my coronary heart proper now. I will in all probability go see the workforce and congratulate them and see the place we weren’t fast, however that is me. We’ll see what we will do.”
“After all, the street (to the championship) will not be that far, however as we already noticed at this time, issues can change shortly. We simply must concentrate on ourselves, maintain our heads down, ignore everybody and maintain pushing.”
