Betrayed by Trusted Aide, Lando Norris Refuses to Back Out With a Chilling Warning for Zak Brown & Co.

Bad strategy calls have become so characteristically Ferrari that it’s become difficult to relate them to any other team. After McLaren’s shambolic Dutch GP, it looks like the Woking squad wants to give the Scuderia company in that lonely party. In an action-packed race in Zandvoort, owing to the ever-changing weather conditions, McLaren’s weekend went from stellar to gravely disappointing real quick. Lando Norris started the race in P2 and was plumb last by the end of Lap 4. From being a podium contender to becoming a back-marker in a matter of minutes, that’s how quickly things turned south for the 23-year-old, and he didn’t hold back while expressing his anger.

The relationship between a driver and their race engineer is crucial. Without trusting each other, getting the most out of a situation is practically impossible. That trust and understanding is what McLaren just couldn’t get right when it mattered, and that cost Norris the race. In the aftermath of the race, Norris couldn’t help but send McLaren CEO Zak Brown a warning.

Lando Norris destroyed Zak Brown & Co.’s silver lining with a reality check

As the rain came pouring down just as everyone got off the line on Sunday, McLaren decided to keep Norris out on his slick tires instead of transitioning to intermediates, hoping to wait out the rain. Although the rain gave way to sunshine in a while, Norris gave way to other drivers on Intermediates, dropping down the order. His struggling state led to an outburst of anger directed toward his trusted aide—his race engineer. While McLaren tried to make amends, Norris had lost it all by then and expressed his dissatisfaction after the race. 

In a post-race interview, as quoted by Formula Passion, the Brit said, “If we look at the final positions, we scored some points, which is positive, but not as many as we should have scored.” [Translated by Google] Finishing P7 after starting in second is no consolation. Giving McLaren a warning, Norris continued, “We made some bad decisions, and on a day like today, that can make or break you a lot of the time. We were just at a disadvantage.” As soon as McLaren didn’t pit Norris after the first lap, the 23-year-old knew there was no chance he could salvage the podium finish he was hoping for.

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He added, “We’ll review everything and make sure we do a better job next time. I think it’s impossible to be perfect in this field. It’s just about limiting mistakes. We still have some work to do, but we’re getting there.” McLaren made unforgivable mistakes in a race that should’ve gone its way. But instead of accepting his errors, Zak Brown resorted to giving excuses.

Zak Brown blamed the weather for Lando Norris’ P7

Considering a very similar situation happened in the 2021 Russian GP, you would think McLaren would’ve learned to pit its drivers at the first sight of rain. But as it’s become known, McLaren didn’t do that and cost Norris a potential podium. In a post-race interview addressing McLaren’s strategic blunder, Brown said, “Difficult race. Tricky conditions. We could have got more out of this race. We’ll debrief on that, but good to have both drivers in the points in P7 and P9 and we’ll be ready to go hard again in Monza.”

Yes, the race was difficult, and yes, the conditions were tricky. But most other teams managed their race and strategies just fine. Along similar lines, Team Principal Andrea Stella gave his verdict on the issue, too. Stella said, “We don’t give up. The good news is that the car was, again, quite competitive. So we will review where we could have improved and go again in Italy.” It’s evident McLaren has a car to compete toward the front of the grid. It just needs to sort its strategic mindset out.

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Will the Italian GP bring with it another strategic blunder, or will McLaren give Lando Norris an actual fighting chance?