Norris still feeling confident heading into Austria Sprint

40

McLaren driver Lando Norris remains convinced that he stands a chance of taking victory in Saturday's Sprint race for the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.

Norris was less than a tenth of a second behind Max Verstappen in the final round of today's sprint qualifying meaning he will start alongside the Red Bull on the front row tomorrow.

His team mate Oscar Piastri was also flying and will start right behind the pair from P3 alongside Mercedes' George Russell, giving them options when it comes to team strategy when the race gets underway.

“[It was] close, as it has been the whole year," Norris told the media in the paddock after the end of the session. "It must have been a nice lap by Max. A good position for the race tomorrow.”

The final round of sprint qualifying was the only one in which the drivers were able to run the soft compound tyres. Every driver opt to make just one run in the final minutes of SQ3 with Norris initially looking on course for pole.

Read also: Silky Verstappen speeds smoothly to Austrian Sprint pole

Norris recorded a time of 1:04.779s to pip Piastri to provisional pole but was then displaced seconds later by Verstappen by just 0.093s.

"I think [it was] reasonably good, to be honest," Norris said when asked how he felt the session had gone. "I never got quite comfortable probably until my final lap, so I’m happy with that.

Asked whether he felt he stood a chance of taking the lead and victory tomorrow, Norris replied "I’m not sure," adding: "From what we see at the minute, yes."

As for Piastri, he was pleased how an upgraded front wing on the McLaren had performed for him and said he was “mostly” pleased with the outcome of the session and his starting position for tomorrow.

"Yeah, the new front wing was working well," he said, adding “I think the position is quite good, obviously,". He acknowledged that there had been "a couple of corners I could tidy up" on his one and only lap in SQ3.

“The gap to Max is not massive and I know there were a couple of big mistakes on that lap, so I think we’re definitely in the mix," he confirmed.

“Obviously a bit of a rough one last weekend so I feel like we’re back on the pace," he added, referring to a disappointing ninth place on the grid in Spain.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella agreed with his drivers that there would be everything to play for when the lights go out on Saturday.

“We gave our best, I think. In a way, it’s been a tricky qualifying session because it wasn’t easy to deliver the laps,” he told Sky Sports F1.

“We are happy with this kind of result. Like always, Max seems to find good performance but it’s good we are there, and we have a good chance for tomorrow.”

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.