Hesitant Norris refuses to answer question about earlier team orders
F1 News
Lando Norris was gifted a win in the sprint race with team orders. McLaren asked Oscar Piastri to give up the race lead in Brazil and swap the order with his teammate. McLaren executed it well, but Norris said it's not a "straightforward" process.
Earlier in the race, Norris sounded annoyed over the team radio. Piastri closed the door at turn one and kept Norris behind for most of the race. After a few laps, Norris seemed to think the plan was a bit different. "I'm not sure what I'm doing here, mate. I thought we spoke about this," Norris told his race engineer, Will Joseph. He replied: "Keep doing what you're doing."
In the press conference after the race, Norris was asked if a change earlier would've made his life easier? "I don't know. I can't...how am I meant to know," Norris answered.
How did McLaren plan for the team orders?
"We spoke through many different scenarios. It was tough to do that much earlier because the guys behind were pretty close. I think there was one lap, but it's always hard to suddenly kind of plan that and execute it well. So I think we did the best job we could. We want both cars up there," Norris said.
McLaren said over the team radio that they would make the change on the last lap. However, yellow flags were triggered after Nico Hulkenberg stopped on track. It looked like it would ruin McLaren's plan. "Of course the safety car put it under a little bit of threat and we were lucky. But there's always those risks in the beginning of the race, end of the race. It's not a straightforward thing ever. So we planned for it and we executed it well," Norris concluded.