Lando Norris won qualifying in Barcelona and will start the race from pole position for the second time in his career. The McLaren driver called his lap one of the best of his career and commented on his chances of success in Sunday’s race.
Question: How satisfied are you with this result?
Lando Norris: Just awesome! Pole positions are always great, and this is the second one in my career. Yes, I had two sprint sticks, but I don’t value them as much as racing sticks. So this is my second pole in my career. In general, a lot of time has passed since the first one in Sochi.
Honestly one of my best laps in a long time. I managed to assemble almost all the components and use the slipstream. In the first and second parts Max had a small lead and I knew I had to do everything perfectly to beat him in the final. And that’s exactly what I did. I’m very happy that I was able to do one of my best, if not my best, lap of all time.
Question: How many times in your career have you managed to set a perfect lap in qualifying?
Lando Norris: I think now my engineer would say I was wrong when I called this lap one of the best, but I think with modern cars and modern tires it is very difficult to put the whole lap together. You can drive half the lap perfectly in one attempt, and the second half of the lap perfectly in the second, but in one attempt you can drive to the limit and do everything correctly – this is very difficult. I’m sure any racer will tell you the same thing.
It’s great if you manage to complete such a lap, but if it also gives you pole position, that makes it all the more fun.
Question: Did you think you had a chance of pole this weekend?
Lando Norris: I think so. We were always close to pole position. I don’t think in any practice the gaps in the top five were more than half a tenth, so I expected the same in qualifying.
Normally Max is two to two and a half tenths faster than the rest, and in the first and second parts he confirmed this. Every time I missed something to overtake Max, and every time I lost to him in the fast corners. So I knew that on the last lap I had to get myself together and do it.
And I managed to gain back a little bit here and there, thousandths of a second, and ultimately stay ahead of Max. I’m glad the risk paid off and I came full circle exactly when it was really necessary.
Q: What are you most concerned about before starting a race?
Lando Norris: I have no particular concerns. On the contrary, I am happy. There is a long straight before the first corner, which makes Barcelona one of the few circuits where you don’t want to start from pole, but it is an opportunity for us to try and win the race.
We didn’t work well during the long series of laps. We have driven a bit and I think Max and I will be close in the race, just like in qualifying. I don’t think our car will be the fastest in the race. I believe there will be a fight between Mercedes, us, Red Bull and Ferrari.
Probably one of the eight cars could be on pole today, and each of them still has a chance to win the race. It will all come down to making fewer mistakes, as we did today. Let’s try to make it a good race again, usually it works.
Source: F1 News

I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.