Lando Norris: Pole was a pleasant surprise

In Shanghai, Lando Norris won pre-sprint qualifying for the second time in his career, which took place in difficult weather conditions, and will start Saturday’s short race from pole position. His Australian partner showed the 8th result.

Lando Norris (1st): “Let’s start with the fact that I am very satisfied and would like to thank our entire team! But it wasn’t easy, you always have to be nervous before such sessions, especially when you know it’s going to rain during qualifying.

The conditions were such that we had to take a lot of risks and actively attack to warm up the tyres. I was going fast, but I overtook two Ferraris, so I had to slow down. Therefore, the first two attempts were not great, but in the last one I managed to do a good lap.

It’s a shame that this isn’t qualifying for the Grand Prix, but it’s certainly not bad. There was only time to complete three laps. The first two had to be interrupted, so the last one was decisive: all or nothing. But as more and more water came onto the track, conditions at the end of the session were much worse than on the second lap; This caused me to make several mistakes when serious aquaplaning started.

But it was fun, and under such circumstances the heart starts to beat faster. Pole was a pleasant surprise, so we will start the sprint from a good position tomorrow. But I don’t know yet how the car will behave over the race distance. Today in practice we only had time to work on the race pace, doing several laps in a row to at least understand something.

But it all depends on what the weather will be like. If it’s like today, we have good chances, but the race is very different from qualifying. Our pace is good, both on the dry and wet track, so our position is quite good. The team is working efficiently, the car leaves a very good impression, so I have every reason to be in a good mood!”

Oscar Piastri (8th): “The day left mixed impressions and the end of qualifying for the sprint did not go as we would have liked. I think we could have shown a better result, but I slipped the drive wheels, which caused the gearbox to shift to neutral. Too bad this happened, but I also have to admit that I simply wasn’t fast enough on the last attempt.

I’m happy for Lando and I think overall we’re doing better than we expected, although it’s still difficult to judge the overall pace. This evening we will check everything and see what we can do to prepare for tomorrow’s sprint and qualifying.”