Lando Norris delivered a solid P3 finish in the F1 Belgian GP Sprint. In spite of a strong move from Charles Leclerc, who overtook him at the start, the McLaren driver managed to overall keep his starting position.
However, it was a brief respite for the Ferrari driver, as on Lap 4 Norris took his position back already, going on to close the gap to Piastri to under a second by the end as the Aussie was stuck behind Verstappen.
Pleased to have another opportunity tomorrow
Not a huge fan of the Sprint format, first implemented in 2021, Norris broke down what happened during the 15 laps of the F1 Belgian GP Sprint Race.
“Yeah. I mean, not a lot going on. Obviously, a bit of fun at the start with trying to overtake Charles. Maybe could have positioned myself a little bit better but otherwise a bit too difficult to get past Max.”
He also had kind words for winner Max Verstappen, who dominantly impressed for the entire session length, as well as for his teammate Oscar Piastri.
“Max drove a good race and I wasn’t going to get past anyone unless Oscar got past Max. They drove good races. Not a lot we could do on a day like today, so looking forward to tomorrow.”
The man to watch
Norris hopes to achieve a better result in tomorrow’s full length race, but also reckons the difference Verstappen is able to make on this track.
“It’s tough. Obviously, I hope for a bit of battling or something but the Red Bull was just too quick on the straight for us to catch up. Maybe some tweaks for us to make into qualifying, I don’t know. We’ll reassess and see what we can do.”
Ultimately, Norris’s main goal of the weekend is to preserve his F1 race winning streak of two rounds in a row at the Belgian GP. In order to do so, however, he will need a better performance in the upcoming Qualifying.
“This is the plan. I’m not too fussed about Sprint races, but obviously main races I prefer to win. We’ll see. I wasn’t too bad yesterday. I was comfortable, just a couple things didn’t go my way. But I’m confident we can have a good result later and put in some good quality laps.”
Not a Sprint fan
He expanded on this topic in the post-Sprint Race Press conference, where he explained that, while having the fastest car on track, he still finds it hard to keep up with the four-time World Champion.
“Like Oscar said, I think we knew we would find it tough to pass Max if he got ahead at the beginning. I got past Charles and from then it was just kind of a bit of a waiting game to see if anything happened, but nothing did.”
The Sprint race did not help him in securing new track knowledge or information to better prepare for the main event, only confirming his previous sensations.
“So I had confidence before that we would be quick. But here, you still need to be a bit quicker in this race than what we were today. Difficult. I think we probably have a quicker car altogether, but just not enough to overtake.”
