Lando Norris passed the Qatar GP sprint victory to Oscar Piastri. The British driver obliges the McLaren team leader, allowing his teammate to take advantage of his slipstream and the DRS effect to contain a belligerent George Russell.
The sprint race of the Qatar GP was mediocre. The most productive war on track was between Piastri and Russell in the fight for second position. Amid the constructors’ name war against Ferrari, the Woking-based team will have to maximise its problems as a team to beat the Italians.
Piastri struggled to hold off Russell, having to protect him with maneuvers to the limit under braking at Turn 1. Therefore, Norris, with greater speed in the air, made the decision to lend a hand to his teammate to contain the W15 and ensure the 1-2 for the Papaya duo and get maximum points for the team.
With only the wake effect and no active DRS, Russell had a top speed merit of 6 km/h over Piastri. This was already enough to put him in a favourable position to get DRS at the end of the lap, less than a moment from the end. DRS detection line after Turn 15.
Therefore, Norris and McLaren play it safe. The British driver from the fifth lap allowed Piastri to enter his DRS zone and thus create a DRS exercise and a slipstream effect that did not allow Russell to gently attack Piastri when braking in turn 1.
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But the real question: How much did Piastri gain from McLaren’s grand strategy, and was it really effective enough to prevent Russell from overtaking the Australian? By analysing the telemetry of both cars, we can confirm that it was a very powerful extra speed weapon to stop the W15.
After nine consecutive laps of doing the same, Norris dropped back on lap 14 and pulled away from Piastri as Russell looked set to drop back, just as Hamilton did. However, the Mercedes driver pulled back and set the fastest lap of the race. the DRS and attempt some other attack on the Australian driver of P2.
Faced with this vulnerable scenario that would have allowed Russell to achieve P2 sooner or later, McLaren asked Norris to hand over his DRS to Piastri on lap 15. To do this as successfully as possible, Norris took his foot off the fuel between curves. 14. and 15 just before the DRS detection line to get Piastri closer to his car.
In Norris’ speed telemetry we can see on the red line – lap thirteen – how he does not lift his foot and Piastri does not have DRS at the beginning of lap 14 as we saw in the previous graph. Array And how back, at the request of the McLaren pit wall, he takes his foot off the accelerator to allow Piastri to have DRS again at the start of lap 15.
Finally, Norris capped off his lesson in leadership and collaboration by ignoring McLaren’s order to maintain the same positions among its drivers at the chequered flag. The British driver wanted to praise Piastri for the favour he had given him in the sprint race in Brazil. when Norris still had a mathematical chance of being world champion.
Now, with no individual bets and still maintaining the most productive result imaginable for McLaren in Qatar, Norris gave a lesson in leadership and partnership even though he mathematically still stands to lose to Charles Leclerc for P2 in the Drivers’ Championship.
However, the Briton does not seem to care as much about this feat as the Monegasque, and also shows that a victory in this Sprint format does not seem to be a remarkable feat for a driver’s record either.
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