A disappointed Lando Norris says his best qualifying result of 2023 achieved in Baku on Friday, “should have been a lot better”.
Norris concluded his session P7, a result that would have satisfied the McLaren charger ahead of Friday’s running. But given how his session unfolded and the potential of his updated MCL60, Norris reckoned that P4 was on the cards.
“I think before today, we 100 per cent would’ve taken it [P7],” Norris told Sky Sports. “I think it’s a great result, the sequence of upgrades worked well.
“The car was working well on this circuit, at the same time I feel like I was doing a better job on my driving and things.
“It should’ve been a lot better, I think we should’ve been P4 today. A bit disappointed honestly.”
Norris pointed to the team’s execution as a relative weak point on Friday.
“We as a team didn’t do the best job making the correct decisions of what to do. But apart from that, things were positive,” he added.
“We just put ourselves in the middle of nowhere for having a P7 today with not being able to do the runs tomorrow with the new tyre.
“Mixed minds, many positive things if you look at it from that side. The team has done a great job getting the parts here and I like them to work straight away.
“We had good confidence that we could put them on things [would] run cleanly, and that’s what happened.”
McLaren introduced but a single performance update on its car for this weekend – a revised floor geometry – but added several track-specific changes, including a lower drag rear wing assembly, all of which proved beneficial in Baku.
“We’re good in the braking zones, we’re good in straight line braking,” he explained.
“If you look at Australia, we weren’t bad. It’s just we’ve added to that and maybe the track suits us again that little touch more. So, a combination.
“We’re still 1s off. We maybe should have been 0.8s off, which is still a very good job, but we should have been four positions higher.”
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Norris: Best qualie of the year ‘should have been a lot better’ F1i.com.
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