- Lando Norris was leading the British Grand Prix with 14 laps to go
- The McLaren driver entered the pits too late and allowed Lewis Hamilton to win the race.
- It was the latest in a series of failures this season for the British driver.
Lando Norris has admitted he only has himself to blame after an error-plagued performance cost him a home win.
The McLaren driver looked set to claim his second career win after holding on to his lead at the British Grand Prix with just 14 laps remaining.
But Norris squandered the win in tame fashion by pitting later than his rivals.
The stop itself was also tricky, as Norris overshot his pit stop and virtually handed the win to Lewis Hamilton.
It is the latest in a series of failures for Norris, who could and perhaps should have taken victory in Canada, where McLaren’s race management was poor and Norris was caught out by the safety car, and in Spain, where he dropped two places on the opening lap and became a mountain to climb.
Lando Norris admitted he only had himself to blame after the British Grand Prix
A late pit stop proved costly as Norris overshot his box and handed victory to Hamilton.
Some argue that Norris could have done more to avoid a race-ending collision with Verstappen in Austria last weekend, just when it looked like he was going to overtake his rival and win the race.
Instead, he is left to ponder what might have been. Had he taken those opportunities, the gap to Verstappen in the standings would be much smaller than the current 84 points.
“I’m not making the right decisions,” Norris said. “I blame myself today for not making some of the right decisions, but I hate ending up in this position and having excuses for not doing a good enough job.
‘I’m tired of saying that I should have done better, that I should have done this or that.
“I don’t care if it takes time, I don’t want it to take time. I’m disappointed. It’s a victory in Formula 1 and I’m not going to settle for less when we should have achieved it.”
The 24-year-old McLaren driver had already started the race, during which conditions swung wildly from sunshine to heavy rain.
Norris took advantage of mistakes by Hamilton and Mercedes’ George Russell, who won last time out at Spielberg but was forced to retire here with a technical problem as rain began to fall at Silverstone.
But his closest rivals, Verstappen and Hamilton, had to make one last gamble, and reaped the rewards of changing tyres a lap before Norris.
Norris blamed himself for losing the win, admitting that he let the victory slip through his fingers.
It was a poor decision by both driver and team and the blow was only compounded by Norris’ clumsy driving, which led to an excruciatingly slow 4.5-second pit stop.
The damage was irreversible. To top it all off, Verstappen managed to overtake Norris in the final stages to take second place and extend his lead over the Briton in the championship standings.
“The late lap is my fault,” Norris admitted. “It’s just a matter of driver intuition and knowing when to pit, and Lewis did a better job than me in that respect.”
“Should we have won today’s race? Yes. Did we? No. I’m not going to be happy with third place, I lost more points to Max. I’m only going to be happy with the final result and I’m not.”