The virtual safety car came out while Lando Norris led the Spanish Grand Prix, and seconds after that, he was losing the win. He now wants the rule changed.
A pace-control system forces cars to hold back at a fixed speed while a hazard gets cleared. It operates when a hazard can be resolved quickly, instead of calling for a safety car. A caution period normally goes on for several laps, yet in Spain it ended before the first one was finished.
Just after the VSC was called when Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin came to a stop in the run-off area at Turn 20, Norris had already passed the pit lane entry at the end of lap 14. As a result, he was unable to make his pit stop during the virtual safety car period. All the rest of the drivers on the grid were able to do so.
Why the VSC cost Norris the win
The VSC ended before Norris could complete lap 15. He pitted at the end of that lap. A stop under the VSC costs 11 seconds less than one under green-flag conditions. Because Norris missed the VSC window, he lost that time.
He also lost five seconds at the stop because his two right-hand side tyres had problems. That pushed him more than 15 seconds behind Kimi Antonelli and more than nine behind Max Verstappen.
Norris was withering in his criticism of the track layout, saying: “I don’t know how someone looks at this design and goes, ‘Mint.'” But he did say there was “a lot of opportunity” to improve it for next year.
Antonelli’s admission
Race-winner Antonelli, who extended his championship lead to 81 points, acknowledged Norris’ bad fortune. “If I have to be realistic and honest, today we didn’t deserve to win,” he said. “Lando deserved to win, and so I think our result was probably P2 or even P3.”
Antonelli wins as Norris loses out under virtual safety car
What McLaren could have done
When asked after the race if stopping on the next lap was the right call or if he should have kept going, McLaren responded with “I had to come in at the end of the lap because it was the only chance.”.
“It was still effectively some pit loss, (but) the fact that everyone’s kind of on colder tyres and you’re still minimising the pit loss.” The medium tyre Norris had started on was destroyed, and the hard tyre Antonelli and Verstappen switched to was amazing. But the pace was very strong on the hard tyre, and Norris caught Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who stayed out under the VSC, 13 or 14 seconds.
Andrea Stella, the team principal at McLaren, made this remark: “We considered staying out, but you have to accept the fact that now you are on relatively used medium tyres. And the people behind you will be on new hard. So you’re never going to open a gap on people on new hard.”
Anticipating the VSC
Stella addressed a separate query about whether McLaren might have been prudent to expect the race director to instruct Norris to pit ahead of the VSC being called. Stella said: “In hindsight, that would have been a good idea.”
He noted that, at the time, it carried dangers. The Madring’s lengthy pit lane — the longest on the calendar — made a stop costly in terms of time.
Stella made a remark. Here is what she said:
- “I would have to review with my engineers, see whether it was kind of obvious that it would end up in a virtual safety car.”
- “Therefore, you try to anticipate or not.”
The one thing that let it all down
Norris said the VSC is a rule that should not define a whole race. “It is a rule that should not define a whole race,” he said. “I was the only one on the whole grid that didn’t get the chance to do the pit stop,” he said. “That’s just unfortunate.”
He has seen his fortunes rise and fall through the VSC in the past, winning on occasion and losing on others, but always during racing, never while chasing a win. This makes it likely one of the first times a victory has slipped away due to it.
A single rule stripped a clear lead from a driver who had done everything right.
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