Lando Norris said McLaren “should have won” the Canadian Grand Prix but “didn't do a good enough job as a team” in the way it handled the first Safety Car stage of the rain-affected race.
The Briton ended up finishing second behind Max Verstappen in Sunday's torrid rain-affected race, but the 24-year-old believes he could and should have finished one place higher.
Norris, who was third on the grid, first passed Verstappen and then George Russell on successive laps to lead the Montreal race until lap 21 as the McLaren enjoyed medium tire conditions.
Norris' speed at that stage of the race had him at the front at one point and he had opened up an advantage in the region of 11 seconds in the space of four laps until lap 25 when Logan Sargeant crashed his Williams in Turn Five.
Moments later, Norris was at the final corner of the track with the pit entrance when Race Control decided to call the safety car.
McLaren remained on track for another lap, but the gap to Verstappen and Russell meant there was plenty of time before each team reached the pit entrance and decided to come in. While his rivals were in the pits, Norris was cutting time. He took to the track after being placed in the safety car, and despite pitting next time, the 24-year-old reappeared at the back of the track behind his Red Bull and Mercedes.
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Lando Norris took the lead at the Canadian Grand Prix, ahead of both George Russell and Max Verstappen.
speaking Sky Sports F1 Immediately after the race, Norris admitted that McLaren “didn't have enough time to make a decision” by pitting immediately, but that “realistically we should have planned the decision in advance, but we didn't”.
He then made his view of what happened even clearer in his post-race press conference.
“I should have won the race today, but I didn’t, so I was very frustrated,” Norris said. “We had speed, maybe we weren't dry at the end, it turns out it doesn't really matter.
“But yeah, we should have won today. It's as simple as that. I don't think we did a good job as a team of doing what we needed to do without being stuck behind the safety car. So there were some lucky and some unlucky times. I don’t think so.”
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Max Verstappen and Lando Norris react hilariously to the battle outside the pits at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Norris benefited from the safety car timing when he took his first F1 win ahead of Verstappen at last month's Miami GP, but the Briton said of Sunday's situation: “I don't think it was the same as Miami. It was just a wrong call.
“So it's up to me and the team and it's something we'll discuss later. We should have won today. Like the goal, I think now we're at a level where we're not satisfied for a second and we didn't do that. So it's disappointing. But it was a tough race, and it could always end in second place, which could have been worse, but it's still a good result.”
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