The reveal of McLaren‘s radio dialogue late in the Russian Grand Prix has uncovered not only a heated outburst, but a glaring difference between the strategic thinking of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo.
While Norris appeared to be cruising to his maiden Formula 1 victory before torrential rain began to pelter the Sochi circuit, the young Briton’s day out ended disastrously after he left switching from slicks to intermediates to too late.
Unable to control his car without the use of a grooved tread, Norris plummeted from first to an eighth-placed finish over the final three laps, after opting against pitting until lap 51.
On the contrary, Australia’s Ricciardo reacted quickly to the dramatic change in conditions, pitting for intermediates on lap 48 and cruising home to finish fourth.
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Radio messages from lap 48 have revealed Ricciardo was adamant that he wanted to box for a change of tyres.
“Crazy slippery now,” Ricciardo said.
McLaren engineer Tom Stallard replied: “Daniel, copy, five (laps) after this (remaining in the race). Do we need inter?”
Ricciardo: “Yeah. I can’t keep it on track. The hard’s just got no temp.”
Stallard: “Copy, Daniel. We’ll box, we’ll box.”
But while Ricciardo was intent on jumping to intermediates, Norris blasted McLaren engineer Will Joseph when he suggested dropping the slicks.
“Four (laps) to go after this one, four after this one,” Joseph said to Norris on lap 49.
“Some cars have pitted for inter. (Mercedes’ Valtteri) Bottas has gone already.
“Track very slippery from here to turn 10. Lots of cars going off.”
Norris snapped.
“Yeah. Shut up!” he said.
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Joseph persisted but to no immediate avail.
“Lando, what do you think about inter? What do you think about inter?” Joseph said.
“No!” Norris hit back.
“I need blue flags. What are they doing?”
Joseph then informed Norris that the driver in second at the time, eventual winner Lewis Hamilton, had pitted for intermediates on lap 50.
“Okay, Lando, Hamilton has taken it,” Joseph told Norris.
“He’s gone to inter.”
But Norris continued to reject that strategy.
“Yes, I see, I see,” Norris said.
“We’ve just got to commit to slicks.”
As the radio messages reveal, Norris began to unravel mentally as he lost control of his car on lap 51.
“This f–king … It’s full wet, boys,” Norris said.
“I’ve got to box. I’m going to shunt. I can’t do this.”
Ricciardo gave an insight into his mindset regarding tyres after the race.
“My situation is that when some of the track’s dry and some of it’s wet, it really has to be us (that decides),” Ricciardo said.
“The team can help us on pit wall, and they were saying there’s a bit of rain on pit wall, but not too heavy.
“Then I was saying, ‘Look, it’s really wet turn five and seven.’ And that next lap I nearly went off. Well, I did go off.
“So I just told the team I need to come in for inters. I was very black and white with them. But that was my situation and that was the right thing for me at the time.”
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