Lando Norris had been looking in contention for a front row spot in qualifying for Saturday's Bahrain Grand Prix, only to end up in a disappointing seventh place on the grid.
Norris was a little over four tenths off the top time set by pole sitter Max Verstappen, with his McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri set to line up right behind him on the grid in P8.
But Norris felt that they could and indeed should have performed better today. “I messed up sector one,” was his succinct and typically harsh self-critical judgement when speaking to the media in the paddock at Sakhir afterward
“I just had a little oversteer on the exit of turn one, just as I came on the throttle," he explained. "It cost me easily one-and-a-half tenths, and one-and-a-half tenths today was P2 so it’s frustrating.”
Norris admitted that after struggling in the first corners his reaction had been to try and push harder in the remaining sectors, and that had been the wrong call.
“I felt like I wanted to push a bit more [which was the] wrong thing to do," he acknowledged. “I paid the price again in turn four and made another couple of mistakes.
"The rest of the lap was there or thereabouts, but honestly the car was easily good enough for a front row," he said. “I’m disappointed, therefore. I didn’t deliver for it.
"A bit of a shame, but I’ll try to make up for it tomorrow," Norris continued. "The team’s done a great job. The car’s feeling amazing, so I’m happy with that.
"There’s a lot of potential. I didn’t get the best lap in at the end, but it’s a long race and there are plenty of overtaking opportunities. We’ll see what we can do to go forwards.”
“Overall, we can be quite pleased with the performance of the car," was the view of team principal Andrea Stella. "We were in the mix in qualifying for the top positions on the grid.
"At the same time, there’s a little bit of a bitter taste that we didn’t fully capitalise on the pace in the car," he admitted. "Lando, in Q3, had issues in turn 1 on both attempts, and felt he could be starting higher.
"But he looked very strong in Sectors Two and Three, which is encouraging for the race," he added. "We have a solid base from which to score good points, and we’re looking forward to tomorrow’s race.”
As for Piastri, the Australian said that today had been a significant improvement on his F1 debut a year ago at the start of his rookie season.
"I did struggle with the balance all session and felt a fair way off compared to yesterday," he acknowledged. It came together a bit more on the last lap in Q3, but it was a bit tricky.
"However going into tomorrow I think we can be in the mix," he said. "The grid is quite tight and there isn’t much in it, so it won’t be easy, but we’ll see what we can do.”
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