Lando Norris has denied that a mistake on his closing attempt in Q3 stopped him from beating the Mercedes drivers to pole position at Formula 1’s British Grand Prix.
Norris appeared to have an edge as he topped the opening two practice hours, but he qualified behind George Russell and Lewis Hamilton’s ever-improving Mercedes.
Although he split the German marque’s drivers on the initial laps in the top-10 shootout, the Briton was unable to improve on his final lap while his main rivals both did.
Norris sustained a moment at Turn 14 which prompted him to abandon his run and return to the pits as Hamilton edged him and then Russell lowered the benchmark.
Asked whether top spot at Silverstone was attainable without that mishap, Norris revealed he was down on his delta compared to his previous lap when he went wide.
“I was already tenth and a half down, so it’s tough,” he assessed.
“I think George and Lewis did a great job, pulled two cars to be up there, shows that the team were also doing an amazing job.
“It was super close, I think if I put it in a good enough lap it was close and I put in a little bit of a fight.
“But no they’ve seen very quick all weekend since FP1 like George said, so there were thereabouts, but we just didn’t deliver today.”
Norris had insisted all weekend that Mercedes would be in the mix once the engines were turned up, leaving him unsurprised that the team locked out the front row.
However, the one-time grand prix winner is optimistic McLaren’s stronger competitiveness in the long runs will bode well as he hunts a historic triumph on home soil.
“I think even if you look at last year, Mercedes were probably one of the quickest in the race, if not potentially one of the quickest.
“So I expect them to be very quick tomorrow, especially if they can look after their front tyres very well, they have a very good front end and I think that’s going to be a good saviour for them tomorrow, but again like George said, the conditions are going to be tricky.
“But we’ve been very quick in the races over the last few months, it’s really been one of our strengths, it’s been actually race pace over quali pace.
“But this is a very different type of circuit, it’s a very different layout, but it’s still our strength and hopefully it comes back towards us a little bit tomorrow.”
Norris will share the second row with Max Verstappen in tomorrow’s race as the Dutchman’s own prospects were hampered when he incurred extensive floor damage.
The McLaren driver is adamant his attention is not fixated on the Red Bull man despite their contentious coming together at the last round in Austria fresh in the mind.
“I’m sure Max is going to be racing us tomorrow, but so are two other guys,” he highlighted.
“So I don’t care just about Red Bull, I think our strategy has been very good over the last two months, so I’m happy.
“Thee team are doing a good job and we are confident we can execute a good race, but we need to pace, we need to be able to race well.
“We need to pass two guys if that’s going to be on the cards, so yeah, confident from what we know, we’re going to see in the last few races that we can go forwards.”
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