Lando Norris: “I wouldn’t have said we expected to be P4 but I’ll take it!”

Lando Norris was delighted with his performance throughout Qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix as the British racer qualified fourth on the grid for Sunday’s race.

The McLaren F1 Team racer showed good speed throughout the three segments of Qualifying at the Hungaroring and was less than four-tenths of a second away from the pole time set by George Russell, but he felt he did as much as he could with the MCL36.

Starting from the second row of the grid on Sunday, Norris hopes to be able to at least maintain his position and maybe capitalise on mistakes or issues for those ahead to fight for his second podium finish of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

“A very good position, I wouldn’t have said we expected to be P4 but I’ll take it!” said Norris.  “Very good job by the team, ahead of the guys we want to be ahead of.

“It was a good lap, so I’m happy with it. I don’t think it could have been much better, position-wise, so happy with today and we’ll try to keep it up for tomorrow.”

“I just picked up a bit more understeer on that last run” – Daniel Ricciardo

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo joined him in Q3, but whereas Norris was able to find time in the shootout for pole, the Australian was slower than his best lap in Q2 and was forced to settle for ninth.

Ricciardo admitted his car felt better in Q1 than it did in Q3, with understeer coming in when it mattered, and that cost him the chance of fighting for a position on the second or third rows of the grid.

“I think we’ve been pretty quick this weekend, and that was confirmed by getting both cars into Q3,” said Ricciardo.  “I went slower in Q3 though, so I’m not happy about that.

“I honestly felt a bit better in Q1 than I did towards the end of the session. I just picked up a bit more understeer on that last run and it got away from us. I knew the lap wasn’t great, so I knew we weren’t going to be that high up in the top 10.

“We’ll look into it overnight and then focus on the race. Our pace on Friday looked encouraging so we’ll see what we can do and be pushing hard tomorrow.”

Daniel Ricciardo was only ninth in Qualifying – Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd