Lando Norris says he was never concerned by the gap to Oscar Piastri on Friday at the Belgian Grand Prix after beating his frustrated teammate to pole position in qualifying Saturday.
Piastri was fastest in Sprint qualifying by nearly half a second over Max Verstappen, and 0.6s over Norris, with a strong performance at Spa-Francorchamps. It was Norris who hit back to take pole on Saturday afternoon, though, beating Piastri by a little under 0.1s, and he says there was too much made of the gap on Friday.
“Everyone was pretty worried after yesterday,” Norris said. “I wasn’t even that far off. It was just a couple little issues that we had, so I was confident after yesterday and confident coming into today. It’s nice to see that I could get back to the top.
“Three tenths is just slipstream and not being first out the pit lane … nothing to worry about. People like to make a lot of things up, but no, I felt good. The car has been flying all weekend.
“Oscar’s been doing a good job all weekend, so we’re pushing each other a lot. It’s tough because you kind of see where your strengths and weaknesses are … and you learn from each other quickly. It’s a good but tough battle that we have at the minute.”
Having been so far clear of his teammate at the start of the weekend, Piastri was left to rue a mistake in Q3 that he says cost him a lot of lap time and ended his hopes of taking pole.
“I think [enough time for pole was lost], yeah,” Piastri said. “The lap until that point was strong, but it doesn’t really matter if you could have done it. I didn’t. A bit disappointing. I think both laps in Q3 were a little bit like that, but that’s how it goes sometimes. A bit of a shame, but the car was great again. I felt like I was in a reasonably good flow, just didn’t quite happen on the second lap.
“In all honesty, it felt very similar [to Friday]. You get a few more laps on softs, you explore the limits a bit more, you push the limit a bit more, maybe, and today that probably bit, but it still felt very good. I had just as much confidence as yesterday, so it definitely wasn’t that.”
Piastri echoed Norris’ comments that the McLaren drivers have a tough situation when they can see each other’s data.
“I think we’re a good teammate pairing and we learn a lot from each other every weekend,” he said. “That’s what makes us such a good team, but it also makes it difficult when you’re trying to fight each other. I feel like I did an OK job today; just didn’t quite execute when it mattered.”
