Lando Norris: “I feel like I did a good job all day, even with how I’ve been feeling”

Lando Norris put in a superb performance during Qualifying for the São Paulo Grand Prix on Friday despite not feeling one hundred per cent after a bout of food poisoning leading up to the weekend.

The McLaren F1 Team driver had been a doubt going into the weekend, with Nyck de Vries having had a seat fitting on Thursday in Brazil as a precaution.

However, Norris put it all behind him to put his MCL36 onto the second row of the grid for Saturday’s sprint race at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, with the British racer having been strong all through all three stages of the Qualifying hour.

“I’m extremely happy with today,” Norris said after Qualifying.  “I think we did the best job we could have done throughout the whole of qualifying.

“I think the only thing we could have done a little bit better was going out first in Q3 – but there was also some risk to that. So, apart from that, we made perfect decisions, and the team did an excellent job.

“The car was feeling good, even in the tricky conditions. I was extremely happy to be P1, P5 and P4 through the qualifying runs.

“I feel like I did a good job all day, even with how I’ve been feeling – and maybe wasn’t driving as perfectly as I should have done, but P4 is still a great position for tomorrow, so hopefully we can stay in that position and score some good points tomorrow.”

“I simply didn’t have the pace once we put the slick tyres on” – Daniel Ricciardo

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo fared less well in his penultimate Qualifying session with McLaren, with the Australian finding himself eliminated in fourteenth place in Q2.

Despite admitting to having some fun amid the tricky conditions in Brazil, Ricciardo was unable to switch his car on the same way as Norris and after scraping through to Q2 – he missed starting a new lap by just a couple of seconds – he was unable to better a place on the seventh row.

“It was a tricky session in tricky conditions,” said Ricciardo.  “It was quite fun to be honest, but we didn’t have the pace.

“So yeah, that was a little tricky just to get it out of the first timed lap for the peak of the tyre. When I heard some lap-times of some of the others I was not really sure if that was possible. I simply didn’t have the pace once we put the slick tyres on.

“We’ll try to make up for it tomorrow though. The good thing is we’ve got the Sprint race as well, so you’ve got two chances and hopefully we can make up some ground.”

Daniel Ricciardo was only fourteenth in Qualifying on Friday – Credit: Mark Sutton/McLaren Marketing