Norris finished second in Shanghai after benefitting from a security automobile interval to make his solely pitstop and are available out forward of Sergio Perez, however then managed to maintain his onerous tyres alive to comfortably management the hole with the Mexican.
The end result got here as a shock for McLaren at certainly one of its intrinsically worst circuits, for whereas it might sustain appearances with sturdy qualifying performances, it struggled with tyre degradation in Saturday morning’s dash race.
Norris began the dash on pole, however after slipping up initially he fell again to sixth, forward of team-mate Oscar Piastri and behind each Ferraris.
These struggles made him wager with race engineer Will Joseph that he would fall again so far as 35 seconds behind Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. As an alternative he completed 10 and 20 seconds forward, respectively.
“I made a wager to how far behind the Ferraris we might end at present and I believed 35 seconds and I used to be very unsuitable by that,” Norris laughed, after trailing winner Max Verstappen by 13 seconds for his fifteenth profession podium.
“I am glad to be unsuitable with myself and my very own bets. I am glad for the entire crew, they deserved it.
Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Crew, 2nd place, Max Verstappen, Purple Bull Racing, 1st place, Sergio Perez, Purple Bull Racing, third place, Paul Monaghan, Chief Engineer, Purple Bull Racing, on the rostrum
“In the present day simply labored out, I do not know why. I actually wasn’t anticipating it to be the form of race we had at present.
“However I obtained comfy, might handle the tyres loads, which was a a lot simpler process than what I had yesterday. And I might simply push, the automobile felt nice and felt comfy.”
Norris mentioned he was shocked by Ferrari’s relative lack of efficiency in China in addition to his potential to separate the 2 Purple Bulls, which landed him the ‘driver of the day’ award from the followers.
“I used to be shocked by many issues, the shortage of tempo from Ferrari at present, our good tempo evaluating to the Purple Bull, which was so shocking. So I simply wasn’t anticipating at present in any respect,” he expanded.
“I obtained every little thing able to go residence early and never be on the rostrum, so it is a nice shock.
“It reveals the crew have carried out job. We’re working onerous and it is paying off.”