Lando Norris has admitted his delighted at securing a maiden British GP win at Silverstone.
Starting from third, Norris initially did not seem to have the pace to match Max Verstappen ahead of him or team-mate Oscar Piastri.
However, as the weather turned, Norris came alive, challenging and passing the Red Bull. The ten-second time penalty awarded to Piastri also acted as motivation. Pulling away from the third-placed Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg, he closed down Piastri before the Australian took his penalty at his pitstop.
With a gap of seven seconds over Piastri when the stops were complete, he managed the gap to take an emotional maiden British GP win. Speaking in the post-race press conference, Norris described his emotions.
“Where do I start?” he remarked. “I mean, eventful race. Yeah. Eventful race. I mean, it means a huge amount. You know, at the end of the day, being on top in your home race is very, very special. And I said in some of the other interviews, you know, this is where it all started for me. I was watching on TV.
Norris then reminisced about his early days of watching F1, admitting that he had dreamed of replicating the experiences of previous race winners at Silverstone.
“I was watching, all those many years ago, Lewis, Jenson, Fernando. I think it was, you know, that extremely wet race here, in 2007 or 2008. That’s when I really started watching Formula 1. And I think Lewis won, and I got that picture of him going around and seeing all the fans standing up, and that picture of what an atmosphere in Silverstone is like, and dreamed of that for many, many years.“
“And today I got to live that feeling myself and see it through my own eyes. So pretty amazing, pretty special. A lot of people, from my friends and family, my brother, my sisters, my mom, my dad, my dad’s parents. Every person that I could have here is here. So, yeah, more special than ever, 100%. And, yeah, tough race to do it in as well.
Lando Norris gaining momentum after British GP win?
Norris now lies eight points behind team-mate Piastri in the Driver’s Championship, after his British GP win.
Asked if he has now momentum behind him after a second consecutive F1 win, Norris remained grounded. He outlined his goals for the second half of the season, highlighting the need for “perfection”.
I”t’s tough to say it. Look, you can always class it as momentum or whatever, but I don’t think that… yeah. I don’t know. It’s whatever you want to believe in the end of the day.
I think it’s still just one race at a time. Obviously, I had a good race last weekend and we had a good battle, and we got close, and I was looking forward to another good battle. So, you know, I give my credit to Oscar at the same time because he drove an extremely good race. But, you know, it’s two wins, but they’ve not come easy by any means. We’ve had good fights, but they’re pretty strenuous, exhausting weekends because you’re fighting for hundredths and thousandths, and you’re fighting for perfection every session and I’m against some pretty good drivers. So, it takes a lot out of you, especially when you have a race like today. So, I’ve had two good weekends and, of course, I would love to continue that momentum, but it still requires more consistency. Two weekends doesn’t mean anything otherwise. And I just need to keep it up and keep working hard.
