Lando Norris has blamed his inability to extract maximum performance from the soft tyres during Sprint qualifying at the F1 Dutch GP for his defeat to George Russell.
Russell, who will start on pole for Saturday’s race at Zandvoort, completed Sprint qualifying just 0.041s ahead of Lando Norris. The McLaren driver had hoped his team would challenge Mercedes this weekend.
Norris had been quicker than Russell in SQ1 and SQ2, but lost out to the Mercedes driver in the final part of the session.
According to Formula 1 Sprint qualifying regulations, drivers must use medium-compound tyres for both SQ1 and SQ2, then switch to a set of softs for SQ3, where Norris proved ultimately unable to match Russell.
Norris “a little disappointed” to lose out on Sprint pole
Every driver in the top four – Russell, Norris, Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri – completed the session within a tenth of a second – a result that Norris admitted he was pleased with, if a little disappointed with.
“I’m reasonably happy; it is still a good position,” he said. “It was a reasonable lap, and considering how close it was, it easily could have been first, easily could have been fourth or fifth.
“So, no, a good qualifying. It was close between all the teams, which is exactly what we expected, but a little disappointed to be P2 instead of P1.
“I think just the step onto the soft; there was probably a little bit more grip that I didn’t quite get out of it from the medium to the soft for Q3, so I think maybe I just pushed it a little bit more.”
The McLaren driver went on to express satisfaction with the car, but he remains apprehensive about the overtaking opportunities for Saturday’s Sprint race.
“I think otherwise; the car’s been performing well and looks like it’s continued its strong performance from Budapest, so plenty of positives,” Norris said.
“There are some things I can work on, some things we can maybe get out of the car for tomorrow’s qualifying, but we started the weekend strong, so I’m happy with that.
“It’s not an easy track to overtake, and the inside of the grid’s a lot worse than the left side of the grid, so let’s see.”
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