Lando Norris was somewhat frustrated after last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, lamenting George Russell’s overtake on him as “simple”.
The McLaren F1 Team driver drove a strong race in treacherous conditions, to secure a 6th place finish just behind his British compatriot.
Norris had been running in fifth for the majority of the race, but was overtaken by George Russell when the McLaren driver pitted for a set of dry tyres.
Russell performed an undercut on Norris, having pitted a lap earlier for dry tyres.
Whilst Norris believes the team’s strategy wasn’t “perfect”, the Brit believes it was a “good race”.
“It was a good race, even if we lost position to the Mercedes,” said Norris.
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“That sometimes happens in these conditions, because you can just take the risk of a to pit earlier than one lap.
“There are definitely things that we need to talk about as a team. I don’t think we’ve done a perfect job on strategy, for example. But they did it for a good reason and usually they do a very good job. So I’m not complaining, we just have a bit of work to do.”
Norris did manage to claim the race’s fastest lap, after pitting again late on for a set of Soft tyres.
The Brit was able to do this as Fernando Alonso behind was running almost five seconds a lap slower, much to the frustration of Lewis Hamilton.
Despite a strong result, Norris thinks the team need to work on tyre care, as well as race pace.
“It’s also fair to say that George did a good job too,” Norris said.
“But otherwise we made the most of it, with the fastest lap and the pace at the end. I think we still lack the race pace a bit, especially when we have to take care of the tyres.”
Norris would’ve most likely been much happier had he finished ahead of Russell, however, the Mercedes driver believes the overtake was “pretty dicey”.
Russell explained to Sky Sports F1 how he overtook Norris, in an overtake which he jokingly said was apparently “not good enough” to make it on TV.
“He came out in front of me at the pit exit,” Russell said.
“I was behind and then he went to the left and I sort of went on the wet stuff.
“But it felt pretty dicey from within the car for Monaco in damp conditions, but obviously not good enough for the TV producer.”
When Norris was asked about what Russell made out to be an impressive overtake, the 22-year-old appeared slightly bitter.
Norris slammed that he “wasn’t impressed”, and that Russell must’ve done some “crappy overtakes” to judge his as “dicey”.
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“That was supposed to be mega?” quipped Norris.
“I mean, if that was a mega overtaking move, then he did a few crappy overtaking moves before that!” Norris slammed.
“I just pitted on wet tyres and he had a one lap advantage because he was already on slicks and the slick was the right tyre. He had warm tyres, mine were cold. And he passed me, it’s very simple.
“I wasn’t impressed at all, more frustrated.”