Lando Norris, McLaren, Circuit de Catalunya, 2021

Matching Hamilton’s hundred a tall order – Norris

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Lando Norris does not anticipate he will be able to come close to matching Lewis Hamilton’s record of 100 career pole positions after starting his career, like Hamilton, at McLaren.

In brief

Norris not expecting to match Hamilton’s hundred

Lando Norris says it’s unlikely he’ll equal Lewis Hamilton’s feat of scoring 100 pole positions. Both drivers began their F1 careers at McLaren, but as Norris pointed out, the team were in more competitive shape when Hamilton debuted for them 14 years ago.

“It’s incredibly impressive to see he’s achieved,” said Norris. “I kind of look to maybe one day achieving such a thing. I guess we’re in a slightly different position to when he started his career in Formula 1 so I’m not fussed if I never do.

“But I think looking up to something like that and seeing what’s possible in Formula 1 and just what an incredible driver he is. It’s pretty cool to go racing with him every now and then and get to race him on track. So congrats to him and I’m sure there’s many more this year that he’s going to be able to get soon.”

Aston Martin upgrades good enough to reach Q3 – Vettel

After narrowly missing out on reaching Q3, Sebastian Vettel believes that Aston Martin have the performance to reach the final stage in qualifying after receiving the upgrades that team mate Lance Stroll enjoyed last weekend.

“Well, it’s a bit better,” says Vettel, “but as you saw, it wasn’t much missing today. We just found ourselves on the wrong side. Unfortunately, the last set of tyres, I need to understand why, but I struggled to get them up to temperature to start the lap and lost a bit there. So obviously it’s close, where we are. The small things, the small gaps, make a big difference.”

Vettel will line up 13th on the grid for today’s race, with team mate Lance Stroll 11th.

Schumacher confident Haas can fight for Q2 in 2021

Despite Haas having already turned their attention to 2022 with no upgrades to this year’s car planned, Mick Schumacher believes the team still have the potential to earn appearances in Q2 in 2021.

“It is a totally realistic goal,” says Schumacher. “Obviously, I’d be unhappy if that wasn’t the case this year. We’re still pushing hard for it. Obviously, there will be tracks that maybe come more our way. We were quite close to Kimi [Raikkonen] looking in hindsight. So I think we can be very happy and hopeful for hopefully a Q2 in well the next whatever eighteen races.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Comment of the day

Following yet another controversy involving Nikita Mazepin, which saw the Haas rookie handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding Lando Norris in qualifying, @stefmeister points the finger not at Mazepin or the other drivers involved, but something else entirely…

Not really sure that justified a penalty to be honest.

Seemed like there were three to four cars holding each other up at that point and Mazepin just happened to be at the back of that queue about to start a lap when Norris turned up and I’m not really sure where he could have gone to get out of the way other than use the old circuit which would have resulted in the following hot lap being deleted anyway.

I also in general think they need to do something with the tyres as the main reason we see so much of this in sector three at various circuits now is because of how much preparation and nursing the tyres require now on the out lap. It just feels like the past few years it’s gotten significantly worse and we are seeing this queuing up in sector three way more often than we used to.
@Stefmeister

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Kbc, Taurus and Jerichokane!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

70 today: Gary Anderson, who penned the Jordan 191 raced by Michael Schumacher, Alex Zanardi (above) and others
  • Born on this day in 1951: Formula 1 designer Gary Anderson, whose cars included the Jordan 191 Michael Schumacher made his debut in

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

10 comments on “Matching Hamilton’s hundred a tall order – Norris”

  1. Maybe if some QLF is wet – otherwise next to impossible for Haas.

    I don’t think bunching up in S3 happens more often than before. Pretty much the same for a little while.

  2. RandomMallard (@)
    9th May 2021, 7:34

    I don’t necessarily agree with @keithcollantine about normal Qualifying statistics necessarily being simple. Things like qualifying on race fuel or 1 lap qualifying meant it wasnt always about who was fastest, but who had the least fuel/best track conditions. And even with our current system it isn’t perfect, for example the times Q2 has been used for the grid due to weather, or even last race where Hamilton set the fastest time of the whole weekend in Q2 but wasn’t on pole.

    Overall, I think there have been enough statistical anomalies in Qualifying’s history that I’m willing to risk 3 trial Sprint Qualifyings. I’ll reserve my judgement until afterwards.

  3. Formula E really looking good, dynamic and fast on the full Monaco layout.

  4. Re Norris: Breaking records doesn’t matter anymore when Hamilton retires.
    Re Mick Schumacher: Nah, only next year if Haas regrets their biggest mistake or if you move to Alfa Romeo.
    Re Formula E: Bring back narrower cars.

    1. (I was talking about that F1 should bring back narrower and shorter cars, by the way.)

  5. Someone actually asked Norris if he thinks he will do 100 poles? Come on..

    I wouldn’t be surprised if it was ‘tactically’ asked of Verstappen, but Lando?

    1. RandomMallard (@)
      9th May 2021, 11:20

      Well, Lando is still younger than Lewis was when he joined F1 and if he can keep up the form he’s showed for most of this season, then I think he’ll have the potential to do very well, albeit not quite reach 100 poles, but very well nonetheless.

  6. In response to COTD: I agree that something needs to be done, however it may not be the tyres themselves that are causing the issue. Hear me out. I believe there may be a much more scientific reason behind the way the tyres are treated and conditioned before the flying lap, and that reason? Data. I believe that with the technology and understanding of how the rubber works, through sensors, diagnostic equipment, accumulated knowledge and computational power now available to simulate and analyse, teams no actually understand in much greater detail than in the past how to extract the absolute maximum performance from the rubber at hand. I believe that it is a Pandora’s box that has been opened, and there is no putting it back inside now without restricting the computational power available to teams, aka, dumbing the team’s down. In my opinion, this will never happen. I believe this will now be the norm regardless of who makes the tyres.

    1. Know* excuse my non proof reading

      1. Mikey, oh my days, *now* even. Excuse my poor proof reading 😂

Comments are closed.