Lando Norris left gobsmacked after Hungarian GP driver of the day named

23 July 2023 , 16:46

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Lando Norris shared his feelings about not winning driver of the day in Budapest (Image: Sky Sports)

Lando Norris was surprised to learn Sergio Perez won driver of the day after beating the Mexican to second place at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

McLaren had another superb day on Sunday, showing more remarkable progress after starting the season so horribly. Norris was on the Silverstone podium two weeks ago and followed that up with another second-placed finish.

He held off the charging Red Bull of Perez in the final stages. It looked for a few laps as though it was inevitable he would be caught, but the McLaren began to find more pace again in low fuel while the Mexican lost some of his momentum.

That meant Norris held on to second place quite comfortably in the end, while Perez was more worried about Lewis Hamilton behind him. He held off the Mercedes and was named driver of the day after starting ninth on the grid.

Norris appeared a little annoyed about that in his post race interview. "He got driver of the day, what the hell?" he said, before adding with a smile: "I need a quicker car," and later concluding: "But I don't care – I finished P2."

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The Brit also admitted that he had been very worried about Perez in those closing stages: "There was a moment that they told me Checo had done a 1.22.3, and I did a 1.23.2 – I was like, 'Okay, game over'. And then traffic made my life tough, but degradation was very tricky today," he explained

"The tyres felt like they held on well and then they would drop off and then came back again. So the stints were all over the place, depending on where you were in the stint, but actually at the end of the race the tyres came back to be again and I managed to maintain the gap to Checo.

"Stressful, even in the middle of the race... the degradation is always in the back of your head so you need to make sure you're good at the end of the stints, in case he catches me – I need to be able to put up a fight.

"It's a challenge to know how much to push and save, but we did a good job, all we had to do between the team and myself, to get another podium, trophy and a load of points."

He made up a place in the race to finish second, but felt he could have done so earlier. On the first lap, Max Verstappen took advantage of Hamilton's slow start off the line but Norris was usurped by his team-mate Oscar Piastri as he tried to get past the Mercedes.

Explaining what happened, he added: "I was frustrated a little bit with the start, where I was just unlucky. I tried to turn in three times but I couldn't because Max and Lewis were fighting so hard. I guess neither of them wanted to let up. And Oscar got all of us! Any time I tried to turn in, I couldn't."

Daniel Moxon