Lando Norris was briefly allowed to dream of victory at the Italian GP. A lightning-fast start propelled him past pole-sitter Max Verstappen, but the world champion quickly reasserted his dominance after one lap. On the bright side, Norris’s second-place finish allowed him to gain three points on World Championship leader and teammate Oscar Piastri.
Prior to the race on the high-speed circuit of Monza, Lando Norris was full of confidence. He asserted that his race speed was good and speculated about where it might lead. His optimism was rewarded at the start: after nearly 500 meters, the Briton overtook Verstappen at the first chicane. The world champion cut the corner, but quickly relinquished the lead back to his close friend at the request of the pit wall.
The incident stirred excitement, but it was short-lived. Verstappen, in Red Bull’s RB21, was dominant. Norris was easily overtaken in the next lap and quickly fell five seconds behind. This effectively defused the race. “I might have let the car coast a bit at the first chicane,” Norris reflected with a mischievous smile on the maneuver at the first chicane. “Battles with Max are always fun.”
However, any real battle was quickly over after the first lap. “We didn’t have the speed of the Red Bull,” the Briton admitted. “I did everything I could, tried to fight with Max. But he deserved the win. This is,” Norris believes, “the first time this season that we’ve been ‘slow’. Still, it was a fun race, I enjoyed it.”
Norris didn’t want to dwell on the pit stop that initially cost him his second place to colleague Piastri in the final phase – who quickly swapped positions again at the urgent request of the pit wall. “As a team, we sometimes make mistakes. This was one of them. But I’ll keep fighting, I’ll keep going tirelessly.” Because Norris hasn’t given up on the world title just yet.
