Norris questions Perez accolade: “He got driver of the day? What the hell”
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Perez was awarded the official ‘Driver of the Day’ award after recovering to finish third following his lowly ninth-place grid start.Despite running in the dominant RB19, Perez was unable to overtake Norris in the closing laps, coming under pressure from Lewis Hamilton.How have McLaren turned their 2023 F1 season around?Video of How have McLaren turned their 2023 F1 season around?During his interview with Sky, Norris realised that Perez had been named driver of the day – something he quickly questioned.Norris said: “He got driver of the day? What the hell.”The interviewer replied: “You need to work harder…”Norris quipped: “I need a quicker car!”It was a great day for Norris, who secured back-to-back podiums for the first time in his F1 career.The 23-year-old admitted he thought Perez would get him after he was told about the Mexican’s rapid pace after the final round of stops.
“There was a moment when they told me Checo did a 22.3 and I did a 23.2. I was like, ‘hmm, OK. Game over’,” he said. “Then I had traffic and it made my life tough. “Degradation was tricky today. The tyres felt like they held in well, then they dropped off and came back to you. The stints were all over the place depending on where you were in the stint.“But at the end of the race the tyres came back to me a bit and I managed to maintain the gap to Checo. So, stressful. Even in the middle of the race I was like ‘I want to chill for a bit’.Related Hamilton “a broken record” as he urges Merc to copy Red Bull’s “direction” Wolff: Verstappen domination ‘like a field of F2 cars against an F1 car…’“In the back of my head I knew Perez is in a Red Bull and you see Max pulling away.“A lot of it is tyre degradation. It’s not necessarily they are way quicker over one lap, it’s just there degradation. You need to make sure you are good at the end of the stints in case he catches me and to be able to race and put up a fight. It’s a challenge to know how much to push and save.”
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