Lando Norris insists he would be “stupid” not to go for victory in the sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix, despite starting from the second row.<\/p>\n
The McLaren driver could only set the third-quickest time in the shorter grid-setting session at the Lusail International Circuit, after George Russell disrupted McLaren’s dominance by going second.<\/p>\n
Oscar Piastri, in the leading MCL39, marked a return to form, clinching pole. However, his team-mate, who is 24 points ahead in the F1 drivers’ championship standings, is not going to allow him to win without a fight.<\/p>\n
“I’d be stupid not to try and win,” Norris said after the session. “I’m here to try and win, so I’ll see what I can find overnight and see what we can do for tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
However, he remained realistic about his prospects over the 19-lap race, on a track that is notoriously difficult to pass on.<\/p>\n
“It’s impossible to overtake, so I think I’m probably going to finish P3,” the 11-time grand prix winner added.<\/p>\n
“But if I can at least get a George off the line or something, then that’s probably the most I can hope for.”<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tNorris ‘just didn’t put it together’<\/p>\n
Norris showed strong pace through the first parts of qualifying, but struggled to put it together when it mattered most.<\/p>\n
When asked if jostling for position with Alex Albon had compromised his final push attempt in SQ3, the Briton have a very matter-of-fact response.<\/p>\n
“Yeah,” the 26-year-old responded. “But that’s life.”<\/p>\n
However, he was quick to disagree with the suggestion that he could not find the pace during practice and sprint qualifying, instead identifying the cause of his third-place result.<\/p>\n
“No, no, the pace was there,” Norris explained. “I just made a mistake in the last corner on my first lap and didn’t put it together.<\/p>\n
“So, no, pace was there. Just didn’t put it together.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris insists he would be “stupid” not to go for victory in the sprint at the Qatar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-315207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}