Lando Norris has admitted that he would have had no chance of challenging for victory in Saturday’s Montreal Sprint race, were it not for the two Mercedes cars that lined up ahead of him scrapping amongst themselves.
George Russell made a superb getaway from pole position, while Kimi Antonelli also launched well enough to retain second place.
It appeared as though the pair were set to pull clear of the field from that point, with Norris already two and a half seconds behind the two Silver Arrows by the second lap.
However, he was handed a route back into contention when Antonelli made a bold overtaking attempt on his team-mate. The teenager felt he was forced off the circuit by Russell when he attempted to go around the outside into turn one.
Then, on the very same lap, he locked up again and ran off track at the turn eight chicane, causing him to bounce across the grass and lose considerable pace. This allowed Norris to close the gap and sweep past, immediately piling pressure on Russell.
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The Mercedes driver managed to keep his compatriot at bay to claim the Sprint victory, but Norris was comfortably clear of Antonelli for the majority of the race, apart from a late lunge which saw the Italian run off track once more and surrender the position back to the McLaren.
Reflecting on the events that unfolded, Norris conceded he had been fortunate that the Mercedes drivers had held each other up, admitting he would have been nowhere near them otherwise.
“It was certainly nice to be in that position, but I was only in that position because they battled,” the defending drivers’ champion said.
View 2 ImagesKimi Antonelli felt team-mate George Russell pushed him off track during their Sprint duel(Image: Getty)
“If they didn’t battle, I [would have been] 10 seconds behind. They were so much faster than us and we were lucky that they battled.
“I took advantage of it, but today showed that the three-tenths gap we had yesterday, even though it looked like we could close that, the pace they had in the race was just on another level compared to us. There are so many things we have to improve on, maybe into Monaco or Barcelona, hopefully.”
As for the Mercedes duo, team principal Toto Wolff expressed hopes that his drivers had got it out of their systems and would stick to the internal rules of engagement agreed upon in this intra-team title battle.
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He said: “You could see how quickly it goes. You create a gap with two cars and then you start to fight a bit, and you can lose a race.
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“If it goes on longer and it’s a bit unlucky for us, and it’s the Grand Prix, then Norris may well win. You don’t want to lose a race because you crashed into each other. Sometimes it needs a little moment to remind ourselves what our objectives are.
“This is not particularly against one or the other, but there’s a framework that we want to establish and I’d rather have it in a Sprint race, where it’s not a lot of points, than in a main race.
“We don’t want to start, at race five, to have headlines that this is escalating, because it’s not. It’s the emotion. He’s a young driver and I think George would have probably done the same, so we just need to see how we handle it.”