Norris admits he pushed too hard after hitting wall in dominant Singapore win

Lando Norris admits he was likely pushing too hard at times in his run to a dominant victory at the Singapore Grand Prix, as two specific mistakes risked damaging his car.

The McLaren driver led every lap and pulled over 20s clear of Max Verstappen before his first pit stop, but then lost time locking up at Turn 14 and only just managing to keep his car out of the barrier. Later in the race Norris did, in fact, hit the wall with his right rear entering Turn 10, and he says it was a sign of how aggressive he was driving, trying to give himself a full pit stop in hand over the field.

“I was flat out,” Norris said. “I was probably pushing a bit too hard. It was definitely not like I was cruising. I was pushing to open up a gap, and at one point I wanted to try and open up a pit window to give myself an opportunity to maybe box at the end of the race for quickest lap if I needed to try and achieve that. Daniel [Ricciardo] stole that away from me at the end of the race.

“A tough one, but it wasn't easy. The car was not easy to drive, especially on the hard tires. I struggled a lot more than what I did on the medium. With the traffic and things, it was a bit harder to manage the second half of the stint compared to the first, but I was pushing. Let me tell you, I was definitely pushing -- probably too much, hence the mistakes I was making, or the two mistakes I made with the wall, but otherwise things were going well.”

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Despite those two incidents, Norris doesn’t believe there was any damage caused to his car and says he was slightly surprised by the way the car’s characteristics changed when approaching traffic.

“The team said that there was something with the front wing, maybe being a little bit off," he said. "I hit the front wing against the barrier, so it might have tweaked it a touch, but I don't think probably much to change it, but hard to know. On these cars, as soon as you tweak something a tiny bit, it can have quite a big impact, but nothing that I was probably feeling.

“As soon as I did that, and I think it was more... I was pushing, but also it was just as I was catching up to the dirty air from the cars ahead. Whether they were 3-4s ahead, it changes from the past 20 laps that I had. You have a little bit less grip, a little bit less downforce, tires are going away a little bit; it just caught me out.

“It wasn't like a lack of concentration or anything. It was just a bit of a surprise to me, but I think the car was all good... A big thanks to the team.”