Photo credits: McLaren F1
McLaren had kicked the weekend off in the best way, as the MCL60 appeared to be the second fastest car around the high-speed corners of the Losail International circuit. An incredibly good pace that allowed Lando Norris to beat everyone else’s times and put himself behind pole sitter Max Verstappen in Friday’s qualifying.
Norris, however, won’t be starting Sunday’s race from the front row, as both his Q3 attempts were deleted for exceeding track limits. A rather disappointing ending that demoted him from P2 to P10.
“I just had a correction on oversteer and I went off. The team have done a good job, I just messed it up,” he told media after the race.
A costly mistake that doesn’t allow him to concentrate on anything else but the missed chance, even more as the car was performing so well.
“I can’t think like that, I just think of the job I’m meant to do today which is put in good laps and make no mistakes, that’s all I did today. It was not a good day for me.”
Norris was one of the many drivers that saw their lap times deleted for infringing track limits over the weekend. The qualifying order, in fact, had to be changed after the end of the session.
No better luck for his teammate Oscar Piastri, who – after stepping on the podium for the first time in his F1 career last racing weekend in Japan – had his time deleted as well.
Piastri had managed to qualify in P3, right behind the other McLaren, but just as he was busy in the post qualifying interview it was announced that he will be starting the race from P6 instead.
“Obviously shame. I pushed a little bit hard on the last lap, a shame because the car was quick,” he commented at the end of the session.
“We can have another go at it tomorrow in qualifying and then in the Sprint too, so we will see what we can do. It’s very tight, it’s easy to make mistakes and the track is very slippery so it’s not making things easy for us, but we will try.”
“Again, it’s a shame that we fell back down for the main race where the most important points are, but there are definitely points up for us to fight.”
