Lando Norris has reflected on a missed opportunity to take pole position at the F1 Chinese GP.
Lando Norris saw his pace during qualifying fluctuated from leading the timesheets, to mistakes hampering his hopes.
Q3 became a tale of two halves for the championship leader. His first lap was just 0.090s slower than team-mate Piastri.
However, he aborted his second lap after two mistakes left him with no chance to steal the top spot.
Speaking in Parc Ferme after the session, Norris admitted his disappointment at failing to secure pole position.
A ‘feisty car’ led to disappointment for Lando Norris
Norris praised his team-mate’s maiden pole position. also revealed he “struggled” once again with the handling of the MCL39.
“Yeah. I mean, always disappointed if I’m not on pole, but Oscar deserves it today. He’s done a very good job all weekend, so happy for him. His first pole in Formula 1, so it’s always cool. Just a couple of mistakes again, kind of been my case this weekend, but the car was feeling a bit better today. I’ve got a lot more comfortable with the car, so a step in the right direction, especially from yesterday where I was struggling a lot and even this morning I was struggling a lot. A much better direction that we’re going in. So yeah, not too disappointed.
Norris admitted the MCL39 remains a challenging car to drive, the cause of his mistakes in Chinese GP qualifying.
“I mean, yeah, I’ve said that plenty of times. It’s still quick enough. We’ve never doubted it’s the quickest car. It can just be a little bit feisty at times, but no, today it’s not so much that. Today was just mistakes from my side and that’s all.
The British driver also revealed he is confident of a positive result on Sunday, confirming major setup changes ahead of qualifying.
“Yeah, we changed quite a lot on the car because we were nowhere and yeah, we worked quite hard to make some improvements into quali and then hopefully for the race tomorrow. So we’ll see.“
Lando Norris “not as comfortable” as Australia
Speaking in the post-qualifying press conference, Norris revealed he is not as one with his car as last weekend.
“I mean, it was tricky for everyone, I think. It’s just tight and close, but it was a much better job than we did yesterday—and I did yesterday. So the car was feeling much better and yeah, I was feeling definitely more comfortable. Still too many mistakes from my side. I’m not as comfortable as I was in Australia. Just tricky, but it is for everyone, and I just haven’t done the best job—and Oscar has done a very good job. So still a good result. I’m happy with P3, yeah.”
Norris also admitted to performing below expectations in sprint qualifying acknowledging the car can easil take pole position. He confirmed both cars were on the same run plan, giving an equal chance to both drivers.
“Yeah, I don’t think it was so much run plan. I just think we didn’t get as much out of the car yesterday. I obviously locked up and went straight. The car’s easily quick enough for pole, so I just did a terrible job yesterday.“
When asked if he has confidence ahead of tomorrow’s Chinese GP, Norris admitted he has improvements to make to challenge his team-mate.
“I think Oscar’s shown great pace. I definitely haven’t—especially from the race pace. And whenever we struggle with front graining, it’s something I just struggle with a lot personally. So yeah, difficult for me. It’s been therefore a difficult weekend, just trying to deal with those things. It’s something I’m not strong enough in. But yeah, I’ve got a long, long night ahead of me to sit down and go through the data and see what I can improve for tomorrow.”
