AllRacing

Norris not feeling Mexico-level confidence despite Sprint/qualifying sweep

Lando Norris says pole position at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix did not come easily and he is less confident in his race pace than in Mexico, even as teammate Oscar Piastri continues to struggle.

McLaren expected to be strong in Brazil and the early signs were promising as its drivers qualified first and third for the Sprint, but polesitter Norris had to withstand pressure from Kimi Antonelli to secure victory while Piastri crashed out. After taking pole position again on Saturday afternoon, Norris says the fact his first Q3 run left him 10th shows how challenging the weekend has been so far.

“It was for sure more stressful than I would have liked, especially because we’ve been very quick all weekend,” Norris said. “Just didn’t need that. I don’t really know how it happened. I looked at the data after, quickly, between the two runs, and I braked earlier with less pressure, and still somehow locked up. So yeah, a bit weird. Maybe a bit of wind or something.

“That certainly put a little bit more pressure on my final lap, and I saw the others improving – but not a lot. It was just difficult again, just with the track conditions, the wind, everything – hard to get a nice feeling out there. So again, I didn’t know if I was up or down on my delta, so I was a bit stressed. But when I went over the line and saw the lap, I was pretty happy. And when I saw no one running quicker, even happier.”

Looking ahead of the race, Norris says he is less confident than he was two weeks ago when he dominated in Mexico City, given how unpredictable the weekend has been so far at Interlagos.

“I think in our race pace tomorrow – not the most [confidence] I’ve had. I was certainly more confident in Mexico,” he said. “I think after this morning, with the Mercedes pace and Kimi’s pace, it certainly lowered my confidence level altogether. But we’re still quick. We’ve still got that little advantage in qualifying, and I really hope that we can continue that into the race tomorrow.

“But the weather is going to change again – I think it’s meant to be even colder, which might suit [Mercedes] even more. And the wind is meant to change also. So it’s difficult. Every track is so different. The feeling I have on one track is different to the next and those kinds of things.

“But I just feel like I’m doing a good job. I’m driving well. Before, earlier in the season, I would just have weaknesses, and I feel like I’ve maybe still got some here and there, but I’ve lessened them, they’re not like one tenth now – it’s two hundredths. So when I can put together the good parts and have those not-so-bad parts, things go very well.”

He wasn’t the only one caught out in the Sprint, but the consequences hit hardest for Piastri. Kym Illman/Getty Images

Norris enters Sunday’s race with a nine-point lead over Piastri due to the Sprint result, and starting from fourth Piastri admits he was less happy with how his car was handling on Saturday.

“I went through it all and kind of assessed what happened [with the crash], and once I was comfortable with what happened you just go back into qualifying mode,” Piastri said. “It’s very different to a Sprint race or normal race, just focus on that.

“The qualifying session itself wasn’t easy, a bit of a bizarre weekend with the soft tire just not working for some reason and to have pretty much zero lap time improvement through Q1, Q2 and Q3 is quite weird.

“It just feels like things are not flowing that easily at the moment, I had pretty good confidence in the car yesterday, today felt like it was a bit trickier for everybody and I just struggled to get the most out of the car.

“I think Austin and Mexico there were clearly some things to learn, clearly some things I wasn’t very naturally comfortable with that I had to adapt to. This weekend certainly yesterday things felt much more normal – from the first lap of practice I felt comfortable, the lap time was coming easily.

“Today was a bit more tricky in terms of the conditions and just trying to get everything out of it, but I don’t think there’s kind of been the same issues this weekend. I’ve still got the belief I can go out and win races and win the championship, but things are not coming as easy as I’d like at the moment.”