'We have seen Norris's performance at its finest', Stella claims

Speaking to GPblog after the race, the Italian summed up his driver’s performance as follows: “For me, today is one of Lando’s races. He's very good when there’s high degradation, when you have to run long stints, when there’s not much grip and It’s hot.

“I think he kept a level head in understanding that. We needed to be fast in overtaking Charles, but we also needed to make sure we finished the race. And I think from this point of view, he showed some patience when it was not possible to overtake.

“He did, I’m not sure how much this was visible, something that ultimately might have been decisive in the second stint when he decided to just back off completely, cool down the tyres and then go again. So I think we have seen Lando’s performance at its finest.

Finally, Stella also wondered how the race might have unfolded for Norris had he not lost position to Charles Leclerc at the start: “We need to just check whether there was an opportunity into the first corner to retain the position, which would have unfolded a completely different race if we were following Max rather than Charles.”

Starting from the front row alongside Verstappen, Norris lost out at the launch as Leclerc, benefitting from a late call to start on soft tyres, swept past into second. The Monegasque managed to keep the McLaren behind for much of the race until Norris finally fought his way through just before the first round of pit stops.

Leclerc, however, struck back with an undercut to regain track position, but his defence couldn’t hold forever. Five laps from the finish, Norris forced his way past and began chasing down Verstappen — though the laps ran out before he could mount a serious challenge.

Still, second place was a valuable haul for the Briton in the championship fight, particularly on a weekend when his teammate had little to celebrate with his fifth-place finish.