"Being on top in your home race is very, very special," claims Norris after his first home victory
Hot on the heels of his maiden home F1 victory at the British Grand Prix, McLaren driver Lando Norris revealed that "being on top in your home race is very, very special."
McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris started from P2 and P3 on the grid at Sunday's British Grand Prix. Starting in the wet, the Australian managed to extract more grip from his inters than race-leader Verstappen could and picked off the Dutchman for the lead.
The Melbourne-born driver managed to build up an enormous lead of over 13 seconds over Verstappen and Norris. However, a safety car period meant that the championship leader lost his comfortable lead.
At the second Safety Car restart, Piastri braked heavily, and Verstappen shot past him. The stewards rules that the Australian had not followed procedure and handed him a 10-second time penalty. Just moments after this incident, Verstappen had spun at the exit of Stowe and dropped back.
It left Piastri and Norris at the front of the field, and they managed to build a huge advantage over the field. When the papaya cars pitted for slick tyres, Norris emerged ahead after Piastri served his penalty. That left the Brit to enjoy the last few laps before crossing the line to win his home race for the first time.
Asked to comment on his race at Silverstone, Norris commented: "Where do I start? 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. 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.
Having also won the Monaco Grand Prix earlier this year, Norris has now also claimed his first home victory. Despite finding himself in a run of successful races as he also won the Austrian Grand Prix, the Bristol-born driver refused to claim that he has now the upper hand over his team-mate Oscar Piastri.
"I mean, it'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.
