Daniel Ricciardo admitted to being disappointed not to make it into the top ten shootout in Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix, with the Australian missing out by less than a tenth of a second to Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon.

The McLaren F1 Team driver, who will leave the Woking-based team at the end of the season, was eleventh fastest in Q2 at Spa-Francorchamps, but thanks to grid penalties for other drivers, he will start further up the grid in seventh.

Ricciardo says that moving ahead of Albon is an obvious target for Sunday’s race, but he knows the likes of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, both of whom were amongst the drivers’ taking penalties, will be fighting their way through the field and will be difficult to keep behind.

“It’s a little bit disappointing to be so close to Q3 and there were a couple of little things which cost us, but it is what it is,” said Ricciardo.  “I think we did relatively well.

“This morning, we had to change specification of wing, so that was not as planned, but I still think we did quite well with that considered.

“For tomorrow, I’m not really sure how it will play out. Obviously, we will gain some positions due to penalties so we will start seventh, so that’s good. I think Albon is certainly a target, even if he’s been quick all weekend, and then there are some quicker guys coming back through, but I think that we should try to hold on as long as we can.

“I think if we put in a good first stint and try to distance ourselves, that buys us a bit of time later in the race.  

“Overall, relatively pleased with the performance of the car. Just another one where we missed that little bit. So, we’ll keep at it and look forward to going racing tomorrow. It’s been a busy week, so, I’m just looking forward to watching the lights go out and getting on with the 44 laps!” 

“It’s going to be a long race, but you never know” – Lando Norris

Team-mate Lando Norris did make it into Q3 but was only able to qualify tenth, which will become eighteenth once his grid penalty for engine component changes is applied.

The Briton was ‘reasonably happy’ with his performance during Qualifying, and if they were going for outright position, he felt seventh place could have been possible.

Norris admits McLaren are still not where they want to be when it comes to outright pace this weekend, but he will be doing everything he can to move forward on Sunday and fight for a place inside the top ten.

“I think I’m reasonably happy with today and we got the maximum we could actually achieve,” said Norris.  

“Of course, we weren’t going for outright position, and maybe we could have got P7 if we had used a set of new tyres, which would have been a little bit nicer, but we had to make sure we were in the best place strategy-wise for tomorrow.

“We’re still not where we want to be on pure pace, so hopefully tomorrow we can change a couple of things and try to move forwards and get into the points. It’s going to be a long race, but you never know.

“Overall, we’re in a good place so we’ll try our best.”