Mark Hughes: Too fast to win? How Norris lost Spanish GP to slow-driving Antonelli

After all the fears of drama and chaos presented by the ‘high-speed Monaco’ of Madring, a remarkably incident-free race ensued, with but a single short VSC for a stationary car. But that VSC shaped the race, because Lando Norris — in truly scintillating form from a dramatic pole position lap — was already 5sec past the pitlane entry as it was imposed. His lead over Kimi Antonelli was almost 7sec after just 14 laps, but that meant the Mercedes was able to take the full 12sec saving of stopping under the VSC, which was rescinded just as Norris was heading for the pits a lap later. That won Antonelli a race he was going to lose and lost Norris one he was set to win.

A brake problem had sent Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin up an escape road and had he successfully completed his attempted spin turn rather than simply understeering into an awkward position, then he would have rejoined the track, trailed to the pits to retire and there’d have been no VSC. That failed Stroll spin-turn cost Norris his victory.

So the result didn’t reflect the performance order. Away from the outlier demands of Monza, McLaren had the fastest car here, just as at Zandvoort and Budapest. Or at least had a car fast enough that Norris could make the difference. But watching that order evolve through the weekend on a new track, where teams had just a fraction of their usual knowledge, was fascinating. Because on Friday the MCL40 was around half a second off the Mercedes/Ferrari pace, with Norris missing most of FP2 to a gearbox change.

But even disregarding the gremlin, the McLaren is a more particular car, needs more massaging into its sweet spot and that trait was exaggerated on a track at which everyone was initially fumbling in the dark without any hard data. Of the top cars, the Ferrari is seemingly the easiest to put on track and be immediately fast but seems not to have as much potential to improve. The Mercedes is somewhere in between.

For Saturday, McLaren revised its emphasis around the lap, particularly regarding its deployment, using it more heavily in Sector 1 rather than Sector 3, just like Red Bull and unlike Mercedes and Ferrari. This might have been to take fuller advantage of the McLaren’s ability to have great front tyre temperature by the start of the lap, courtesy of the trick new wheel rims introduced at Zandvoort.

This was a challenge for everyone else, especially Mercedes, with Russell commenting, “With the smoothness of the tarmac it wasn’t always straightforward to get the tyres working for lap one.” So under-temperature fronts combined with potentially over-temperature rears, which were taking a hell of a punishment through the dramatic La Monumental, the long-banked turn that accounts for about 60% of the left-rear’s energy input over the whole lap (because of its combination of vertical and lateral loads) and with the T13-17 sequence following immediately afterwards giving them no respite.

So Norris was able to drive a straightforward, uncomplicated out-lap in contrast to the Mercedes drivers and Verstappen, who were weaving around trying to generate front temperatures. But it took until his final run of Q3 for Norris to feel sufficiently at ease with the Saturday car to lay it on the line and what unfolded was a spectacular pole lap, one that would have been over 0.2sec quicker but for a wild oversteering moment out of the final turn. “It was one of the best laps I’ve ever done,” he said. “I knew what I wanted to do; it was just whether my brain would let me do it. It was just about getting into that flow state.” The lap bettered Antonelli’s by 0.011sec.

But that performance gap, if it was there at all, was much bigger on race day when the McLaren’s easier tyre usage really boosted it. Norris at least feels it was he who put the car on pole, that the difference here between drivers was more significant than that between cars. And that if he hadn’t done that, then his chances of winning the race on a no-passing track were going to be slim. “We were the fastest today,” he said after the race, “but we’re just not where we need to be in qualifying. We take a step on Sundays because the way I drive I can do a better job with the tyres than the others.”

It certainly looked that way as he sprinted away from the field on his mediums as Antonelli’s front-left medium was visibly opening up after around 10 laps. The Mercedes in turn was putting distance on Verstappen (who’d started on softs) and the hard-shod Leclerc and Russell. Lewis Hamilton had by this time retired his Ferrari with no brakes, having been running ahead of Verstappen (once the Red Bull driver had been instructed by his team to give the place back after passing off track on lap 1). Verstappen had come out on top of a thrilling few opening corners as Antonelli twice ran wide trying to pass Norris. So for Verstappen to let Hamilton back ahead involved also surrendering a place to Antonelli. Had it not been for that, he’d have had track position over the Mercedes and could quite conceivably have been the winning beneficiary of Norris’ bad VSC luck.

The VSC. To ensure he’d not passed the point of no return for the pit entry, Antonelli had even deliberately slowed in anticipation of the VSC, his pitwall noting Stroll’s stationary car. He duly dived in as the VSC message arrived on screen, followed in by Verstappen and Russell.

Norris lost 12sec by being so fast. Add to those 12 lost seconds (as everyone came back up to speed as Norris pitted) another 4sec for a sticking front-right wheel on the McLaren and Norris rejoined in a net fourth place 16sec adrift of Antonelli. Those trick wheel rims which put the heat into the McLaren’s front tyres so well, without then overheating them, had quite possibly contributed to that sticking front-right wheel. This on a circuit at which overtaking just wasn’t a thing – too many short straights, just like Monaco. It is a fantastically demanding circuit for qualifying, and the commitment and precision of the top guys as they threaded their way between the walls at super-high speeds was breathtaking. But it needs a layout tweak or two to make it raceable.

Russell bailed on the mediums to which he’d switched because the fronts were graining fast and his second stop got Norris up to third. By far the fastest man on track, Lando tracked down Verstappen but once on the Red Bull’s tail, there was no way he was going to find a way by.

“We were too fast to win today,” said Norris, trying to quip his way through the pain. Just a little slower and he’d have made the pit entry. Alternatively, McLaren might have called him in as soon as they saw the Aston pull to a halt rather than waiting for a VSC. Which would have carried some risk. Furthermore, Stroll initially looked as if he was about to get going again with that aborted spin turn… so it would be churlish to be too harsh.

Like Forrest Gump, he just kept running, hoping for a safety car which never came

There was then time to abort Norris’ stop on the next lap, because the VSC was rescinded a few seconds before he reached the pit entry. At that point he had a lead of 14sec over Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, which had stayed out, having started on hards (meaning the remaining 43 laps would have been too much for the mediums he’d be obliged to take). But even had Norris been able to get his mediums to last another eight laps at his previous pace advantage and he’d conceivably have had a 20sec lead by the time the tyres were finished (the front mediums quickly grained their tread away for everyone), it wouldn’t have been enough. It would still have brought him out behind Antonelli – even without the slow stop – although ahead of Verstappen. But… “the mediums were already destroyed,” reflected Norris later. “We wouldn’t have pulled out the gap.”

Norris and McLaren lost this race through plain bad luck, not through any strategic blunder.

So everything fell into place once more for Antonelli, who took his eighth victory of the season to extend his championship lead to 81 points, 38% more than the next man, Russell. But even he was acknowledging how luck had played a heavy part.

As the VSC pitters came in, Leclerc stayed out in the Ferrari, putting him in the lead. Then, like Forrest Gump, he just kept running, hoping for a safety car which never came – and Antonelli in second, looking at a stint length of 43 laps, with no threat from Verstappen behind, didn’t need to overtake him, but just keep out of the turbulence zone so as to look after the rubber.

Which meant the pace of the race was artificially slow. Without any pressure from behind, Leclerc was able to run a tyre-conserving pace too. The old-tyred Ferrari’s lap times looked competitive, but only relative to the also-cruising Antonelli. Norris – in closing down the gap to Verstappen – was often lapping up to 1sec faster than all of them.