Lando Norris: “Tricky qualifying, probably the most difficult we’ve had this year”

McLaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris is set to line up in tenth after qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix. Norris felt that he had the potential to be a couple places higher up in the order after the tight session. 

“Tricky qualifying, probably the most difficult we’ve had this year. I think there was a little bit more to find, but probably only one or two more positions on the grid.” 

A close call in Q3 saw Norris’ qualifying put at risk when Max Verstappen snapped to the left on a slow out-lap, and Norris was approaching quickly from behind. Norris avoided Verstappen by veering past on the grass. 

The FIA reported that Norris described the occurrence as an “simply an unfortunate incident.” Verstappen was given a reprimand nonetheless, but will not face a grid penalty for the event. 

With McLaren overtaking BWT Alpine F1 Team for fourth in the standings after the Singapore Grand Prix, Norris said that the team has set their focus on upwards momentum on race day in order to continue their lead. 

“Our competitors look quick, but we’ll look for opportunities to make up places in the race tomorrow and hopefully keep up the fight in the Constructors’ Championship.”

“I think we were relatively competitive, but I think we were just ultimately missing that last little bit.” – Daniel Ricciardo

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo missed out on a Q3 appearance by narrow margins, finishing in eleventh by just three thousandths of a second behind Sebastian Vettel’s time. Ricciardo said that he felt “strong” throughout the session, which made the Q2 knock-out particularly unfortunate. 

He explained that the track evolution didn’t boost his times as much as expected, which made it difficult to find those miniscule fractions of a second when it came down to it. 

“I’m disappointed with the overall result because the session was looking good. From the first lap, it was strong and I was comfortable. I think the 1m30.8 was a quick time on the first set of tyres. From there we were competitive, but it was hard to get much more out of it, and we were trying to push a bit more, but that hurt some other corners. 

“I was hoping we would be able to keep gaining, especially with track evolution, but the gains at the end were very minimal, and it was really hard to make that next step.”

Ricciardo described the team’s performance as “relatively competitive”, and remains optimistic about their chances on race day in spite of lining up outside the top ten.  

“I think it was looking pretty good and then obviously to be out in Q2 was not really what we thought was going to happen. I think we were relatively competitive, but I think we were just ultimately missing that last little bit. 0.003s is painful, but we’ll try again tomorrow!”

Credit: McLaren Media Centre