Lando Norris secured P2 in the F1 US GP Sprint Qualifying session today at the Circuit of the Americas. Despite finishing just 0.071 seconds behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who claimed pole position, the Brit said he was “pretty happy” with the result, acknowledging the strong performance from both himself and the team.
Norris looked set to take pole position in the early stages of Sprint Qualifying. After topping both Q1 and Q2, the British driver held a 0.139s and 0.130s advantage over Verstappen respectively. However, a late surge from the Red Bull driver in Q3 saw Verstappen snatch pole, narrowly edging Norris by just 0.071s.
“All happy” with P2 in the session
Speaking after F1 US GP Sprint Qualifying session, Norris acknowledged that he would have loved to have been on pole, but he was still “pretty happy” with his P2 result.
“Yeah, of course would have loved to be on pole, but not a surprise for us to be just a bit slower than the Red Bull lately. So yeah, I’m still pretty happy. I don’t know how much I was off by, but probably a little couple of things right here and there that I could have improved on.“
“And I just caught a few bumps a little bit wrong, let’s say. But that’s just the difficulty of this track. So otherwise, all happy.“
Reflection of his Sprint Qualifying lap
Once Norris was informed of his time deficit to Verstappen, he appeared slightly surprised by how much he had lost in comparison. Reacting to the margin, he responded with a subtle, “Oh, quite a bit,” acknowledging the narrow yet significant gap that separated him from pole position.
Norris elaborated on the comfort he felt within the car during both the earlier Practice session and Sprint Qualifying, explaining that the overall feeling on track, particularly through Sector 1, was quite bumpy. He went on to add that part of the challenge at the circuit is learning to be happy with that discomfort, noting that “being happy with not being comfortable” is the trick at COTA.
“I don’t know. I’m sure if you ask most people, are they confident through sector one with the bumps, I’d probably say no. So it depends.”
“I think around here you just have to be happy with not being very comfortable. I think that’s kind of the trick. Otherwise, OK, I think the laps were pretty good.”
“I found good steps of time throughout. Just easy to catch the bump in the wrong angle or a bit too much throttle here or there over the bumps. You probably lose 0.0714. So not the end of the world. But, of course, would have loved to have been that little bit quicker.”
Close weekend across the board
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s Sprint Race, Norris acknowledged that he believes McLaren’s race pace is slightly stronger than Red Bull’s. He expressed optimism that this could provide him with an opportunity to challenge Verstappen and potentially reclaim the lead during the Sprint Race.
“I certainly hope so. I think normally our race pace is a bit better. We struggled the whole year with our qualy pace, especially when it’s close.”
“And it’s been close today, the whole weekend so far. So, yeah, that’s why I think I would say not surprised. But we have more hopes for the race so we can get back ahead.”
