Lando Norris believes his McLaren crews made "a bit of a mistake" by not allowing the Briton to follow the same strategy as his teammate Daniel Ricciardo in the Mexican Grand Prix.
The Aussie outscored Norris for only the second time this season, thanks in large part to a medium-to-soft tyre strategy that was perfectly executed by Ricciardo.
Although bot drivers had started on the medium compound, a long fist stint allowed Ricciardo to take a gamble on the softs that played out in his favor, so much so that he was even able to put enough distance between himself and Alpine's Esteban Ocon to overcome a 10-second penalty handed to him after his contact with Yuki Tsunoda and protect his seventh-place position in the final standings.
Norris on the other hand was passed by both Alpine drivers on the opening lap and then lost more time relative to his teammate by running a medium-to-hard strategy that proved less productive.
©McLaren
"[I lost] just two places in the beginning, obviously, both to Alpines, which is the main thing," BNorris said, quoted by Motorsport.com.
"Just one off the line and then one around the first few corners, which is just a bit unlucky sometimes.
"So nothing too bad, just the way it is. The rest I think, we did a reasonable job."
Norris reckoned that opting for the hards instead of the softs on his second sting, which were his first choice, cost him 30-40 seconds of race time overall.
"We covered Yuki [Tsunoda] very early on, which meant I had to go onto the hard tyre. So I would not really what I wanted to do," he admitted after finishing P9.
"So maybe a bit of a mistake there to do that. But Daniel did what I wanted to do, which was to stay out and then go onto the soft, which was like, 30-40 seconds quicker in terms of race time.
"I think we did the best we could. Still managed to get past Bottas bought us with a few laps to go. So that one extra point always helps."
Regarding the general lack of grip, he said: "I mean, that's just what we have to deal with. Yeah, we made a mistake going onto the hard tyre. You don't have to use it, we chose to. That's life."
In Mexico, McLaren shaved four points off Alpine's advantage which now sits at 7 points ahead of next week's Brazilian Grand Prix, the penultimate round of the 2022 F1 season.
"It makes me happy that we're closing the gap," said Norris. "But we're working hard. So I feel like we deserve to be getting what we're getting at the end of the day.
"But it means we still have to work extremely hard to beat them over the next two races.
"I don't know how we're going to do to be honest with you. I wouldn't say Brazil is going to suit us at all with our balance of the car and so on, and our struggles.
"But I think even the last few races, we've not been the quickest car or quick enough, we've just done a better job with the strategy and with reliability, such as today.
"So let's get to the chequered flag."
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