Autobayng News Team
Lando Norris described his quickest lap in Q3 at Spa-Francorchamps as one of the “best laps I’ve ever done”.
The world champion set the third-fastest time in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix, but will be demoted to 13th on the grid for Sunday’s race due to a grid penalty for excessive power unit component use.
The McLaren driver’s first lap in the final stage of qualifying, a 1’44.801, was the fastest time up to that stage of the session, four-hundredths of a second faster than Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The Mercedes driver would ultimately take pole position with his second effort in Q3, with Max Verstappen joining him on the front row in second, as Norris abandoned his second flying lap after an error through the Fagnes chicane.
“Honestly, I didn’t think I was going any better than my first lap,” Norris admitted. “My first lap was pretty amazing. I was quite shocked to be at the top, so I was very pleased.
“I just don’t know if I was up or not. I don’t know if I was green, yellow, white or purple, so that was a shame. The thing is, I knew if Kimi was going quicker, he wasn’t going quicker by half a tenth. That’s never been the case all season. So, again, I guess it just hurts when you see a car go four tenths quicker. But he’s done a good job, and I’m so happy with P3.”
Despite missing out on the fastest time in qualifying and being set to start outside the top ten on Sunday’s grid, Norris says he is very pleased with his performance in the session.
“Honestly, I’m pretty pleased to be here,” he said. “It’s just a shame I have a ten-place grid penalty, so I won’t be anywhere close to here tomorrow morning.
“I also feel like, honestly, I’ve been doing a very good job. I feel like all weekend I’ve been very confident with the car and getting everything out of it since first practice. My lap in Q3, honestly, was probably one of the best laps I’ve ever done in qualifying, so I’ve been very pleased with my performance all season. But, like I said on Thursday, it doesn’t matter if you do the best lap of your life. It doesn’t mean you’re on pole all of a sudden. We just need to add more performance to the car. It’s quite simple, and everyone in the factory is working on that.”
Asked what he feels his prospects are from 13th on the grid, Norris admitted that it was “tough to say”, but that he was looking to get ahead of the Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto and the Racing Bulls of Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson.
“I’ll just do my best to come back through and get well into the points,” Norris said.
“I think we’re clearly much quicker than quite a few of the cars. Gabi has done a good job, as always. The AlphaTauri [Racing Bulls], or the upgraded one of Arvid, looks pretty racy at times, so I’m confident we can at least get past all of these guys. It’s more about how far into the top six or eight, from a Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari point of view, we can get back in the race with these guys. So that’s just the target.”
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