Lando Norris believes his pace drop in Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix qualifying was down to McLaren’s rivals doing \u201ca really bad job\u201d on Friday compared to the Woking-based outfit.<\/p>\n
The reigning world champion grabbed pole in sprint qualifying on Friday and turned that into a dominant victory<\/a> in Saturday morning\u2019s sprint.<\/p>\n But that pace didn\u2019t materialise for McLaren<\/a> in qualifying for the main race on Saturday afternoon, with Lando Norris<\/a> fourth behind Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc, Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen and polesitter Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the Mercedes.<\/p>\n Oscar Piastri, Norris’ team-mate, could only muster enough for seventh.\u00a0<\/p>\n Norris says he was \u201cstruggling a little bit more\u201d with his car in qualifying, but believes McLaren\u2019s rivals simply \u201cdid the job they should\u201d compared to where they were on Friday.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI think we still did a good job,\u201d he told the media, including Crash.net, on Saturday after qualifying.<\/p>\n \u201cI just think the others did a really bad job yesterday and just did the job they should have done today, honestly.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, not many complaints. It was certainly a bit trickier with the car today, with the wind and the temperatures.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe the car wasn\u2019t working quite as well, and I was struggling a little bit more for whatever reason.<\/p>\n \u201cBut not because we changed anything. It\u2019s just the conditions were a bit different, and the others did the job they should do.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI think we are where we deserve to be, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was screwed from the off\u201d<\/p>\n Norris battled a boost issue in Q2, while revealing he had another deployment problem at the start of his final flying lap in Q3.<\/p>\n \u201cWe certainly had more issues with deployment and things like this,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cI started my final lap with just less deployment for some reason: it just didn\u2019t go with a full pack.<\/p>\n \u201cI was screwed from the off. So, it was definitely not as clean a run for ourselves, and we need to understand why.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI think the temperature is still a bit hotter at this point of the day, and the wind\u2019s a little bit different.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the same time, the tarmac has been rubbered in a lot more from all the categories, and certain lines I could do yesterday I could do today to the same extent. Little things.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re miles off; I think it\u2019s just over two tenths, three tenths.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, it\u2019s not night and day. I think it\u2019s more the others improved and we struggled a bit more. But otherwise, we need to check the data.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked by Crash if his qualifying performance was a reality check, he replied: \u201cI don\u2019t think people gave us enough credit for the job we did yesterday compared to the others.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cWe were clearly quicker, and that\u2019s why I was very happy with yesterday\u2019s performance and this morning\u2019s performance, that we maximised everything.<\/p>\n \u201cI said yesterday already it was pretty close with the Mercedes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mercedes, around all the corners, was pretty much as quick or quicker than us.<\/p>\n \u201cThey just had some issues, and clearly, Max in the Red Bull was strong as well.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not surprised. I think as a team we are surprised we struggled as much as we did today, but I don\u2019t think in terms of order and pace from the Mercedes, it was a surprise at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris believes his pace drop in Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix qualifying was down to McLaren’s rivals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,1737,913,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-646276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646276","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=646276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}