‘I lost out to the better guy’ – Norris ‘confident’ he can improve after being beaten by Piastri in Barcelona

Lando Norris is confident that he can continue to improve going forwards after being beaten to victory in the Spanish Grand Prix by McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri, with the Briton stating that he “lost out to the better guy”.

While the papaya squad locked out the front row at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, it was polesitter Piastri who stormed ahead into the lead off the line, while Norris was overtaken by the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

READ MORE: Piastri leads McLaren 1-2 from Norris in Spanish GP amid late-race drama for Verstappen and Russell

The 25-year-old later retook the position but, while he tried at times to cut into Piastri’s advantage, could not catch the Australian up ahead.

A potential 1-2 looked to possibly be at risk when Verstappen opted for a three-stop strategy, but a late-race Safety Car saw the picture change again when all of the frontrunners pitted, allowing the McLaren duo to break away at the restart and clinch first and second place with ease.

Asked after the race if he had done everything he could to manage his race and seal P2, Norris answered: “I did, yes. Oscar drove a very good race today. [I] didn’t quite have the pace to match him, but we gave it our best shot.

“It’s a long race, anything could have happened at the end. We both got pretty sideways with the Safety Car restart. It was a good, fun race, and for us as a team to finish 1-2 is even better.”

HIGHLIGHTS: Watch the action from the Spanish GP as Piastri wins while Verstappen and Russell collide

Norris later went into further detail about how his afternoon had unfolded, with the British racer admitting that dirty air proved to be an issue when trying to move closer to his team mate.

“I would say a reasonably straightforward race, a bit more interesting with Max doing the three-stop – his pace was pretty strong, to be honest,” Norris reflected.

“And that was it, I tried to catch up to Oscar at certain points, but as soon as I get within four seconds the dirty air just starts to hurt too much, so then you kind of get hotter tyres, you start to lose downforce, you push a bit more, you slide more and it’s just a bit of a horrible spiral.

“So nothing much, I think the pace was strong, just the dirty air is too much.”

READ MORE: Piastri ‘proud’ to bounce back with victory in Spain as he hails ‘weekend I’ve been looking for’

In terms of what he will take from the weekend as a whole – having admitted to “a couple of little mistakes” in Saturday’s Qualifying – Norris added: “It’s been a good weekend. I lost out to the better guy this weekend.

“He performed yesterday and that gave him the advantage today, so nothing more than that. I know where I need to improve, I know what I need to do better. I feel confident that I can do it but, yeah, can’t win them all, as much as I want to. It takes time to progress and that’s what I’m working on.”