Norris doesn’t blame driver “stupidity” for carnage in Australian GP
The third and final standing start was the most controversial, with Carlos Sainz spinning Fernando Alonso, while the two Alpines, Nyck de Vries and Logan Sargeant were out of the race completely.
This led to a lengthy stoppage as the FIA decided what they were going to do at the final restart.
Norris put together a strong race to pick up McLaren’s first points of the year, putting the team fifth in the championship.
Reflecting on the race, he said: “Even before the chaos, the performance in the race was pretty strong. I had a good start, stayed out of trouble, stayed away from damage.
“Half your job seems to be avoiding people who are out of control, making a lot of mistakes and crashing into people.
“It’s not out of stupidity, it’s tricky in such cold conditions. You would think a hearted tyre to 60-70 degrees would give us some grip, but it doesn’t.
"You always want to break later than the guy next to you and sometimes you pay the price for that. It’s such a slow warm-up lap before the restarts so it’s hard to the get temperature."
Norris believes it was McLaren’s “first positive race” of F1 2023.
“It’s the first positive race in terms of pace,” he added. “Things came together. There are good things for us to understand as a team.
“Qualifying is a weakness for us because we are so poor in DRS conditions. When we open DRS we don’t go any quicker. The rest get more speed than we do, DRS makes our life very tough.”
With a sharp eye for F1’s controversies and storylines, Connor is the heartbeat of our unbiased reporting.
