RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Lando Norris produced a qualifying masterclass when the heavens threatened to open, snatching a sensational pole position despite admitting his McLaren is still far from well-behaved.
Heading into qualifying after a frustrating Sprint, Norris had written off his chances, claiming the car simply lacked the pace to fight at the very front. Fast forward a few hours, and with drops of rain teasing the circuit in Q3, the Briton threw caution to the wind to produce a blistering lap that left everyone stunned , including himself.
Reflecting on that dramatic final flying effort, Norris revealed that the rain might have actually played into McLaren’s hands by cooling track temperatures and bringing the tyres into their sweet spot. It was hardly a picture of perfection, however. He jokingly described his Turn 1 as pretty shocking and his worst of the whole weekend.
He said: "It’s certainly the best in high speed, no doubt, or I have the biggest balls, I don’t know! But the wind is very, very strong there, and in low speed we just really still struggle too much to be confident about everything. We definitely made maybe a little bit of progress, but it’s still going to be the trickier side of things [in the race]."
He added: "Only my Turn 1 was pretty shocking, was probably my worst Turn 1 of the weekend. Otherwise, it wasn’t a lap that felt mega. It was just one where I just had to commit through everything because I knew how close it was going to be. We saw how close it was, but it’s one where I just kind of committed a lot more through moments and almost made more mistakes."
Looking ahead to the Dutch Grand Prix , the McLaren driver remains wary of the car's lingering race-pace gremlins. The low-speed struggles remain very real, but Norris is not worried about the flat-out sweeps as he comes to terms with his slow start to the season in which he defends his F1 title.
He said: "It’s easy to overthink things. It’s easy to kind of overcomplicate stuff at the same time. And at the end of the day, you kind of just got to believe. You’re in Formula 1, you’re one of the best drivers in the world. Have some faith that you kind of know how to automatically change things rather than really consciously digging too deep and overcomplicating at times."
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