MADRID, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Lando Norris went from the high of celebrating one of the best pole positions of his Formula One career to feeling "insanely unlucky" as the champion rued a win that got away through no fault of his own on Sunday.
The McLaren driver looked set for his third victory of the season after starting at the front of the grid for the Spanish Grand Prix debut of Madrid's new track and carving out a lead of more than six seconds before a virtual safety car scuppered his chances.
With overtaking as good as impossible, he had to settle for third behind Mercedes' winner Kimi Antonelli and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
"There was nothing I could do," Norris said of a situation where rivals behind him were able to pit and gain a precious time advantage but he was unable to do so because he had already gone past the pit lane entrance seconds earlier.
When he pitted a lap later, the lead was gone for good.
"Congrats to Kimi and Max. They drove a good race today, so just luck not on our side," said Norris.
Third place left the Briton still fourth overall and 106 points behind leader Antonelli, whose win was his eighth of the campaign.
Asked if he felt it was 'the one that got away', Norris qualified that.
"It depends how you define 'got away'. It’s not like we did anything that made us lose it. We were just insanely unlucky today," he said. "I was the only one on the whole grid that didn’t get the chance to do the pit stop. That’s just unfortunate.
"There’s been plenty of times where I’ve gained from it in the past and times where I’ve lost from it, and it’s racing, but never when fighting for a win.
"It’s not the team’s fault, it’s not my fault. Simple as that. We were just unlucky," he added when asked if he or the team might have anticipated race control calling the virtual safety car once Aston Martin's Lance Stroll had stopped on track.
Norris said staying out longer had not been an option either, with rivals on fresher tyres.
"I had to come in at the end of the lap because it was the only chance. It was still effectively some pit loss, the fact that everyone’s kind of on colder tyres and you’re still minimising the pit loss," he said.
"The medium tyre was destroyed and the hard tyre was amazing."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
