Lando Norris upset despite seventh place in Azerbaijan GP qualifying
McLaren driver Norris finished a respectable seventh place but believes he should have been even higher
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Your support makes all the difference.Lando Norris believes he should have been fourth on the grid for Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix despite a respectable P7 in qualifying.
The McLaren driver only picked up his first points of the season at the third race in Australia, after a start to forget for the Brit and his team in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
But an improved package brought to Baku’s unique street circuit saw both Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri qualify for the final session of qualifying yet despite coming seventh, Norris insists it should have been the second row.
“Before today we’d have taken it, great result. But sequence of the upgrades working well, the car working well on this circuit, feeling like I did a good job with my driving, we should have been a lot better,” Norris told Sky Sports.
“We should have been P4 today. Bit disappointed honestly.
“We as a team didn’t make the right decisions in terms of what to do, but apart from that things were still positive.
“But we put ourselves in the middle of nowhere, having a P7 today and not being able to do the runs tomorrow with the new tyres. Yeah, mixed minds.”
Piastri came home 10th but with the new sprint shootout session to come tomorrow morning before the sprint race, Norris feels as though it’s an opportunity missed for him and his team.
“It’s two-tenths [from P4],” he added.
“We’ve been pushing hard to get drag off the car... this track suits us. We’re still a second off, should have been eight-tenths off. We should have been four positions higher.”
“We didn’t maximise today, not going to be able to maximise tomorrow. Tricky one. Think we were quick enough for P4 today.”
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