‘All or nothing’ final Sprint qualifying lap pays off for Norris

Lando Norris admits he was nervous heading into Sprint qualifying because McLaren was quick in the dry, before setting the fastest time with an “all or nothing” final lap at the Chinese Grand Prix. Teammate Oscar Piastri was second fastest in the only practice session on Friday morning, with Norris set to go comfortably quickest before aborting his best timed lap. However, rain started falling during SQ2 and created extremely slippery conditions for the final part of the session, with Norris overcoming a deleted lap time to lead Lewis Hamilton and the rest of the field by over a second. “I’m extremely happy first of all, so big thanks to the whole team,” Norris said. “You’re always nervous going into a session like this, especially before qualifying when you almost know it’s going to rain and I was quite happy with how it was in the dry. “They were conditions where you’ve just got to risk a lot — you’ve just got to push, build tire temperature and so forth. I was quick — I kept catching the Ferrari so I had to keep backing off! So I didn’t do the first two laps well at all, but I got a good final one, good enough for pole so I’m happy. Sad it’s not for a proper qualifying, but good enough.” Norris says there was no other option but to take risks in order to try and keep temperature in his tires and find lap time, with a number of drivers struggling in the conditions. “You only have three laps — the first two I aborted on both so the last lap was all or nothing,” he said. “But it was getting wetter and wetter, so actually the conditions on the final two laps were a lot worse than the second lap at least. So I was a little bit nervous that I made a few mistakes, started to aquaplane quite a bit, but it’s good fun. It gets your heart going, and to end up on top is exactly what we wanted. So a nice surprise and a good position for tomorrow.” However, the McLaren driver admits he’s not sure how competitive his car will be over the Sprint race distance on Saturday due to the lack of practice and low grip conditions throughout Friday. “Not a clue! But we did some of our homework this morning,” he said. “We did some consecutive laps to try and understand. But it depends what the weather is — there’s still a chance of rain tomorrow, so if it’s like this then I think the chances are relatively decent. But the race is still very different to qualifying, so I’m sure everyone is going to catch up a bit tomorrow. “But the pace is good whether it’s wet or dry and I think we’re in a good position. The team did a good job, the car’s feeling good and so am I. And it’s paying off.”