Lando Norris was unable to keep his third starting position in the Imola sprint on Saturday. But despite dropping two places, the McLaren driver says he “couldn’t be happier” with his position. Because: “Even if I were the best driver in the world, I couldn’t have achieved more today.”
Norris had no chance against Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz, who were attacking from behind, but he was able to keep all the other drivers in check. “We did our best and beat the people we can beat. But Ferrari and Red Bull are so much faster – it’s not even a race against them,” he says. “At least I tried, but I destroyed my tires in the process.”
The Brit says he found it quite difficult to allocate the tires properly. “It’s difficult to judge your own pace when the guys around you are 1.5 seconds faster. You always want a chance to keep up.”
Norris knew his best bet for third place was to open up a gap early on. Behind him he had Kevin Magnussen as a buffer, who was able to slow down the fast Perez and Sainz. But when the two had overtaken Haas, Norris was easy prey. “But no matter what I would have done, they would have overtaken me anyway.”
But McLaren was already in a difficult position after practice in the morning. Norris was only able to do six laps, Ricciardo none at all. As a result, the team was missing an important reference in the dry. “That made our life a lot more difficult, including when it came to the question of which tires to use,” says Norris, who thought Soft was the right choice.
McLaren hopes for “good race”
“Yes, it was really difficult to assess how we should approach the race,” says Ricciardo, who finished one place behind Norris. The Australian at least held his starting position, overtaking Magnussen and Fernando Alonso. “But hopefully we’ll learn something for tomorrow.”
Ricciardo still sees McLaren in a difficult position on Sunday. “We’re probably not as prepared as others,” he says, describing it as “half a step behind the competition.”
“But I think we’ve learned enough today to be confident about tomorrow without any real hesitation or big question marks,” said Ricciardo. “I think we know enough to have a good enough race.”
“I wouldn’t say we were worried today. It was more of an unknown. I can’t say I have that feeling about tomorrow.”