“We should be on pole”: Frustrated Norris berates himself over Q3 double-fault

Lando Norris told his McLaren team he should have put the car on pole position after today’s qualifying session.

He was initially told he’d qualified on the front row before learning his second lap time in Q3 had been deleted for a track limits infringement as his first had been.

Norris had been the closest challenger to eventual pole position winner Max Verstappen earlier in the session. Although more than half the drivers had lap times deleted for track limits infringements, only Norris failed to post a valid time in Q3.

He lost a total of three lap times over the course of the session, beginning in Q1 where he ran off-track at turn five, the corner which caught out most drivers during the session. Norris repeated that error at the beginning of Q3, leaving himself with only one chance to set a time in the final shoot-out of pole position.

After a tentative start to his final lap, and successfully navigating turn five, Norris looked on course to set a time until a snap of oversteer sent him off at turn 10 again.

“Fucking shit, what the fuck am I doing?” said Norris after completing his final lap in Q3. “I’m just so shit sometimes.”

As it took several minutes for the stewards to delete his lap time, as Norris arrived back in the pits his team still believed he had qualified second, less than three-tenths of a second off Verstappen’s pole position time.

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After being told he’d qualified second Norris replied: “Are you joking? I’m just so stupid. I should be on pole. I just fuck it up too much”

However shortly after climbing out of his car Norris learned he will start Sunday’s grand prix from 10th instead of second.

“A disappointing day,” he said afterwards. “I had a correction and oversteer, went off and the lap time was deleted.

“I should have been much higher up today. The pace of the car has been amazing, the team have done a great job. I made too many mistakes and paid the price.”

As this is a sprint race weekend, Norris we’ll have another opportunity to qualify again tomorrow.

“There are definitely opportunities to recover across the weekend,” he said. “But right now I’m frustrated that I didn’t get the job done in quali, which is to put in good laps. We’ll work hard to prepare for the sprint [race] tomorrow and try and make up for it on Sunday.”

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