“I Would’ve Overtaken Him Anyway”: Lando Norris Defends Zak Brown & Co.’s Decision After Oscar Piastri Misses Home Podium

The Australian GP might just be the most eventful race of the 2024 calendar. It surprised fans at every turn of the race. For McLaren, it was an even more special race. Their young gun, Oscar Piastri had the undying support of his home crowd. And that nearly got him a podium if it was not for the team’s decision to swap their driver position to let Lando Norris through.

After Max Verstappen DNFed owing to a strange brake failure, it was Ferrari’s race to win. But right behind them, were the two McLaren drivers – Piastri in P3 followed by Norris in P4. While the Aussie couldn’t manage to catch Charles Leclerc in P2, Norris was slowly gaining on his teammate. Eventually, McLaren’s team orders came in and Piastri had to make way for Norris to pass.

According to Team Principal Zak Brown, the only reason for this was the “tire delta”, meaning Norris was on a fresher tire set and could’ve gone faster to secure P2. But because of this, the home crowd couldn’t witness their star get a podium in Melbourne, a place only 10 minutes away from where he grew up. Moreover, neither could Norris overtake Leclerc, worsening the fan sentiment towards the swap.

Naturally, in a post-race interview, Lando Norris was asked about McLaren’s questionable team order. “It depends how you look at it,” Norris told SEN radio, as quoted by fia.com. “I was a lot quicker, and I would have overtaken him anyway. It’s just you don’t want to delay the process of that happening. And the longer I kind of spent behind him, the worse it was making my chance of catching Charles and trying to be ahead of Charles.”

He elaborated, saying, “So yeah, I don’t think the result changed at all. He made my life easier and I think he helped us as a team which I thank him for a lot and we have a lot of respect for one another in these kinds of situations. But I don’t think the result changed at all,” he opined.

In the end, the driver swap proved useless with Ferrari securing a 1-2 finish. Norris also reasoned why it panned out that way.

Lando Norris explains why he couldn’t overtake Charles Leclerc

Ferrari were in their own league in Melbourne today. For the first time since the 2023 Singapore GP, Max Verstappen wasn’t leading the pack till the end. And with Mercedes having their own issues, the McLaren drivers were in the mix for the podium. Alas, they couldn’t manage to get to the SF24’s ahead.

Elaborating on the same, Lando Norris said, “I mean, we didn’t leave anything on the table but yeah the lap we were going to undercut, he boxed. So then again you have to go off and do kind of a different strategy. We got close in the second stint. I got very close. If I boxed, I think I would have undercut. But he boxed, so I missed that opportunity.”

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McLaren might not have gotten a double podium but they got a taste of what can happen if they pull their socks up.