Lando Norris was unhappy with his fourth place in Austin Sprint Qualifying, as Max Verstappen took pole for the 100km race. The McLaren F1 driver did not mince his words to express his disappointment.
“It’s not a good day. I struggled all day with balance and setup. In a way I’m happy to be fourth because I feel like it could have been be much worse. But my turn was shocking. It’s not a terrible day.” said Norris, who doesn’t know what to expect during the Sprint.
“It could have been worse, it could have been better. It’s not a new package. I have to keep moving forward, that’s my plan, but in terms of pace I think we are where we deserve to be. ‘to be today. So I intend to progress, but I have no idea what we can do.
Oscar Piastri had reason to be disappointed after the Sprint Qualifying, during which he finished 16th. The Australian had secured a passage to SQ2, but his lap was scrapped and he fell back to a playoff position.
“Most of the lap was good, I made a few mistakes in the lap but I tried to come out of the corner too fast and that’s the result. It’s a shame, but the good thing about this weekend is that we have another chance tomorrow” Piastri said.
“It’s OK, not as strong as what we had in the last races, but I don’t think we’re weak, it’s just that the others have progressed. But we’re not far away, it will be just a little tougher for us than other weekends.”
Piastri hopes to aim for a decent result in the Sprint, but he admits it will be difficult starting from the eighth row of the grid: “We’ll see, it will be difficult to reach the points from where we are… but we’ll try!”