Lando Norris won his first grand prix race thanks to a safety car period. A crash between Kevin Magnussen from Haas and Logan Sargeant from Williams caused the safety car to come out on lap 28. Norris was the last of the top drivers to pit, so he did it when the safety car was on the track. This helped him stay ahead of Max Verstappen and keep the lead.
Carlos Sainz was in front of Norris before the pitstop but pitted a lap earlier, so he dropped to fifth after the accident. Sainz thinks if Ferrari had waited one more lap to pit, he could have been in the lead and had a chance to win.
Sainz said, “Frustrated, because we were ahead of him before that pitstop before the safety car. If we had extended one more lap, we would’ve caught the safety car and we could have won the race too.”
Ferrari’s team boss, Fred Vasseur, admitted they were unlucky with the timing of the safety car. He joked that he didn’t have a crystal ball to predict the crash. He said Norris was lucky because he was the only one on the track when the safety car came out.
Sainz finished fourth in the race but got a penalty for a collision with Norris’ teammate, Oscar Piastri. Sainz tried to pass Piastri on lap 39 but made contact with his car. Piastri fought back but then went off track, so Sainz got ahead.
After the race, Sainz got a five-second penalty, so he finished behind Piastri. Sainz said he had to be aggressive because he couldn’t match Piastri’s speed on the straights. He wanted to catch up with Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc but didn’t have enough time.
