“Well, he’s going to win”: Why Norris gained so much time behind the Safety Car

Lando Norris was disappointed when he narrowly missed the opportunity to pit immediately after a Virtual Safety Car period was triggered in the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago.

It seemed his chance to make a low-cost pit stop while the race was neutralised had got away from him. But fortune was on his side: The VSC continued for much than a lap and he made it into the pits after all, losing no time to his rivals.

In Miami last weekend a similar situation played out but this time Norris was even more fortune. He narrowly missed catching the Safety Car at the worst possible time, which ended up winning the race for him.

Norris’ race engineer Will Joseph warned him the Safety Car could appear at any moment as he hammered down the back straight towards turn 16 on lap 28. Logan Sargeant and Kevin Magnussen had tangled at turn three moments earlier, leaving a bent Williams in a barrier.

It seemed to be a repeat of China all over again when Norris accelerated past the pit lane entrance only to be told seconds later the race was being neutralised. But this time the physical rather than virtual Safety Car was making an appearance.

Although Norris had to immediately obey the delta time which comes into force as soon as the Safety Car is deployed, the Mercedes AMG GT did not emerge from the pit lane ahead of him as he passed by. The rules state the Safety Car will join the track “regardless of where the leader is”, and so McLaren’s relief Bernd Maylander narrowly failed to join the track in time to pick up Norris.

There was just 20 metres in it – and that proved crucial:

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The next car to appear behind the Safety Car belonged to Max Verstappen. He had made his pit stop from the lead on lap 22, at which point he enjoyed a nine-and-a-half second lead over Norris and had Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz Jnr between them.

After his pit stop, before the Safety Car appeared, Verstappen was 11 seconds behind the McLaren. But as Norris followed the Safety Car delta time, and Verstappen followed the actual Safety Car, that gap grew to over 30 seconds.

Verstappen and the queue of drivers behind him realised Norris was gaining a huge advantage. By the time they came back around, not only would Norris have enough time in hand to make his pit stop and come out ahead of Verstappen, he would still be ahead of the Safety Car.

Sainz realised the Safety Car period had just won Norris the race, and cursed his decision to pit a lap earlier. Piastri, who came in at the same time and had led his team mate up until that point, seemed the most frustrated of anyone:

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For Norris and Joseph, despair quickly gave way to joy as they realised the advantage they had gained was worth much more than just a well-timed Safety Car. After pulling out a lead of more than half a minute over Verstappen, Norris pitted to make his mandatory tyre change, and rejoined the track long before the Safety Car arrived:

Verstappen first caught the Safety Car approaching turn four, at which point Norris was already at turn eight. The Safety Car continued to lead the field while Norris pitted, then began to release them at turn eight on the next lap.

Race control chose to compress the field behind the Safety Car at this point in order to allow the recovery of Sargeant’s car to begin as quickly as possible. Race control’s priority was to begin the clean-up operation at turn three as soon as they could, which was why the field was kept behind the Safety Car for so long.

That played into Norris’ hands perfectly. Had the Safety Car been deployed a few seconds earlier, he might have just made it into the pits, changed tyres and picked up places from some drivers, though likely not Verstappen. As it was, the cards landed perfectly for him.

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*FOM censors some radio messages

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