Lando Norris: We were faster than Ferrari

According to Lando Norris, the sprint went as expected and if the distance had been a little longer, he would have tried to stay ahead of Charles Leclerc and fight for third place. Oscar Piastri finished 10th and earned no points on Saturday.

Lando Norris (4th): “The sprint went exactly as I expected. We were faster than the Ferrari, although initially I couldn’t stay ahead of Carlos Sainz because he was on soft tires and was driving very well, especially in Turn 11.

There both the strengths of the Ferrari car and our weaknesses were fully expressed, which made life difficult for me, but as soon as I overtook Carlos we were able to show excellent pace. We were noticeably faster than Charles Leclerc, and if the sprint distance had been one lap longer I would have had a chance to beat him.

I believe these are all good signals that inspire optimism ahead of Sunday’s Grand Prix. Although it was not easy, since our car does not cope well with slow turns, and it is hardly possible to fix this tomorrow. But we’ll see what we can do as our pace is still good. We will at least try to compete with Mercedes.”

Oscar Piastri (10th): “I couldn’t get the necessary grip from the tires. At the beginning of the race I had a fight with many competitors, and in the first laps it seemed that the pace was more or less good, but after that the tires held the track worse. I don’t know what this is related to, maybe it was the consequences of countless duels, or the reason was something else, I can’t say for sure.

At the start I had contact with Carlos Sainz’s car, but I’m not sure whether I had contact with George Russell. I can’t even say what exactly happened there. But in my opinion, the equipment wasn’t damaged in that episode.

On Sunday I will start from 10th place and I think we have a difficult race ahead of us. The cars starting next to us can maintain the same pace, so I predict it will be difficult to fight for positions. We may be able to gain an advantage by having two sets of hard tires at our disposal, but we will see if we can implement that.”