Lando Norris rues latest missed opportunity after gutting Brazilian GP admission

Lando Norris believes McLaren were “easily quick enough” to take pole position for the Brazilian Grand Prix, admitting he was “pretty gutted” to initially qualify a distant seventh.

Having equalled his best F1 result of second five times in the last 10 races, Norris emerged as a serious contender for pole at Interlagos by topping the Q2 times on Friday.

However, McLaren’s session went badly wrong when Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri were slow to take to the track in Q3 as a dramatic storm arrived.

Lando Norris convinced McLaren would have been on pole in Brazil

While Piastri slid off the track at Juncao and was classified 10th, having failed to register a representative lap time, Norris’s lap was 1.9 seconds slower than his Q2 effort, leaving him seventh. He will move up to sixth on the grid for Sunday’s race following George Russell’s two-place penalty for impeding.

Having been upset to watch Piastri beat him to a first F1 win in the Qatar sprint race last month, and then see his chances at last weekend’s Mexican GP fade with a rare Q1 exit, Norris was devastated to see another huge opportunity go to waste.

He said: “It was great, honestly.

“The car was amazing, easily quick enough probably to be quickest today and on pole, so pretty gutted it had to end the way it did. I don’t know what to feel about it.

“I think the car was amazing, it came alive a lot in qualifying and easily good enough to be quickest. Obviously delivering the lap and putting it together in Q3 and everything’s a different job, but easily quick enough, so disappointed – another disappointing Saturday [sic] – but not a lot we could have done.”

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Put to him that he could bounce back in the sprint shootout on Saturday, he laughed: “Yeah, sure.

“I look forward to tomorrow. The car is good. I don’t know if it’s going to be good in the wet or if it’s going to be wet or dry tomorrow, but in the dry we should be quick enough. A shame.”

Norris has only one F1 pole position to his name to date, having qualified first in the wet at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix at the Sochi circuit.

The McLaren driver led much of the race on that occasion, but saw his victory chances disappear when heavy rain arrived in the closing laps.

Norris and the team made the wrong strategic choice, leaving him seventh at the chequered flag and allowing Lewis Hamilton to claim a milestone 100th grand prix victory.

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