Double interview: Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri

The main heroes of the day in Suzuka include not only Max Verstappen, who won qualifying by a large margin, but also the two McLaren drivers, who only lost to the championship leader today. On Sky Sports, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris commented on today’s events and shared plans for the near future.

Question: Was it probably impossible to achieve more in qualifying?
Lando Norris: I think I’m ready to accept this result. If there was an opportunity to perform better, I would take it. I think we got almost everything out of the car, although some corners probably could have been handled a little better.

In the first half of the lap I was one and a half tenths faster, i.e. I was running the same time as Oscar, but we are driving at the limit of what is possible, and if we use up a significant part of the tire life at the beginning of the lap, the pace will start to slow towards the end. It’s always some kind of compromise.

But still, 2nd and 3rd time are good results, so the day was a success!

Question: Oscar, this is your first time competing in Suzuka – it seems that you managed to quickly get used to the new circuits for you, you immediately showed the second result and start from the front row. I assume you’re happy?
Oscar Piastri: Of course I am very happy. Last night, working with the car, we were able to find the optimal settings, I also managed to improve, and I slept well, and in my sleep I analyzed the characteristics of the track. Although I would of course like the gap with Max Verstappen to be smaller.

Question: I want everything!
Oscar Piastri: That is it. But other than that we are quite satisfied.

Q: How confident are you in your abilities ahead of tomorrow’s race? You have excellent starting positions and even have one set of hard tires more than Red Bull, which gives you a certain tactical advantage…
Oscar Piastri: We will try to get off the ground as best as possible and stay ahead of Max at the start; We succeeded in this at Silverstone. Although Red Bull’s car is 0.6 seconds faster in qualifying, they can usually maintain an even faster pace over the race distance.

It’s hard to say how everything will turn out, because as we remember from the past, a lot can happen on a circuit like Suzuka. On the one hand, we will try to fight for the lead, on the other hand, strong rivals will start behind us – for example, Sergio Perez’s car is much faster than McLaren, and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari is not inferior to us in terms of speed.

But we have been fast all weekend and this gives us the confidence that we can fight for good results tomorrow.

Question: Surprisingly, Fernando Alonso in Aston Martin, who showed the 10th result, lost more than a second to Oscar. What emotions do you experience when you drive a McLaren car? Do you feel how much progress you have made since the start of the season?
Oscar Piastri: I think the difference since the start of the season is night and day. The car has become so much better in every way. Although her strengths and weaknesses remained the same, the most important thing was that we went faster. We have managed to improve, which is great, but of course we want to get even more out of the car.

MCL60 is not yet free from shortcomings, but we continue to work and try to make further progress. In general, it is always more pleasant to start from high positions than from the back of the peloton.

Lando Norris: We’ve probably made more progress than we expected since the beginning of the year. As the season progressed we wondered: could we get close to pole position on some tracks and qualify for the podium?

I think we were patient because we knew it wasn’t going to be a great start to the championship, but we knew things would change for the better. But it’s impressive that we’re progressing so much faster than Mercedes and Ferrari, because our car was so much worse to begin with.

The team is working extremely efficiently – this is clearly visible, because we are already fighting for front row positions and everything. The most important thing is that we are on the right track. But I want the car to allow me to get good results on any track and in any conditions, so that I don’t have to fine-tune it perfectly, but still perform great.

We are working in this direction, even if not everything has been done yet. However, we get paid quite a lot of money to drive cars, regardless of whether they are good or bad.

Q: Share your prediction for tomorrow’s race. How noticeable do you think the impact of a factor like rubber degradation will be, given that the weather promises to be quite warm?
Oscar Piastri: I think we have a difficult race ahead of us. If we talk about relegation, during yesterday’s practice some cars started to lose two or three seconds after just ten laps. It won’t be easy for everyone, everyone will have to take care of their tires, but we will still be able to perform with enough confidence and fight for the podium.