Lando Norris said that he regrets braking on the kerb during practice, and admonished himself for his blunder.
Norris had a terrible first US GP practice session, but made amends for it in the next one. He finished P2, and only lost out to Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. However, he committed an absolute blunder, and braked on a kerb. His subsequent lock-ups were due to this mistake, and he was lucky to finish in second place.
Norris said that he regrets braking on the kerb during practice, and questioned what was going on in his head at the time.
As quoted by Planet F1, when asked what the reason for his lock-ups were, Norris replied, “No, that was just me being an idiot, braking on the kerb which you just never do.
“Rule number one is don’t brake on a kerb, so it was just me being stupid.
“It was a good day in terms of result and pace, not easy to achieve that. Difficult because of the wind and the bumps and the conditions, which make it very tricky out there.
“Even with the set-up, the first couple of runs I struggled quite a bit, but the final run we made some changes. Then I was much happier with the car and could push it more and the lap time came easier.
“I think we’re in a good place, and I think we can quite easily make some changes into tomorrow to give myself some more confidence, and confidence is lap time a lot of the time. A decent first day and I look forward to the rest.”
(Un)even playing field
Norris also said that despite the track having uneven surfaces that would affect tyres, he would not use that as an excuse.
“There’s a lot of degradation but you can still be fast because everyone is struggling with a similar thing, because of the track temperature, the surface and so on,” he continued.
“But then I also ran the tyres which I flat-spotted, which makes it feel a lot worse than it is.
“It’s interesting. It will probably make for a good race on Sunday – who can keep their tyres in a good condition,” he concluded.
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