Lando Norris conceded that his P3 in Sprint Qualifying at the Canadian Grand Prix was a “good surprise”, with the McLaren driver praising his team for a “positive turnaround” following some concerns over their deficit to Mercedes earlier in the day.
The papaya squad had looked some way off the pace of the Silver Arrows during Free Practice 1 on Friday as Norris ended the session in P6, 1.397s adrift of Kimi Antonelli at the top of the timesheets, while Oscar Piastri placed just behind his team mate in P7.
It was a strong outing for McLaren in Sprint Qualifying a few hours later, however. Although the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Antonelli sealed the front row of the grid, Norris was their closest challenger in third – with a much-reduced gap of three tenths to Russell.Asked after the session if the result was a good one given how things had gone earlier in the day, Norris smiled: “Very. A very good result, actually – a good surprise. I think after this morning we were a little bit worried, let’s say, about how far off we were and more just the lack of confidence in the car.
“But we made some tweaks, we changed some things and seemed to make a good improvement. I’m happy with third – it wasn’t the best lap, I could have got more out of it but then when I saw the gap to the guys ahead, not that much.
“A positive turnaround, and I’m proud of the team that we managed to do such a good job.”Reflecting on how the upgrades brought by McLaren in Montreal have been feeling, Norris suggested that some functioned well while others require more work going forward.
“I think it certainly felt decent – some things were maybe a bit more questionable and we probably need just more time to review things and look back, especially because it’s such a weird track,” the reigning World Champion explained.
“It’s so low grip, you’re kind of bouncing off the kerbs and stuff, so you’re not getting a true representation of everything and it’s hard to back it up with what we have in the wind tunnel and things like that.
“We need a bit more time with some bits and we’ll probably reintroduce some of them next weekend or in Barcelona.
“At the same time, the rest of the car now was clearly working well and I felt confident in SQ3, especially on the soft [tyre], which is maybe the first time this weekend that I felt that confidence. A good step forward, and we’ll see what we can improve knowing that into tomorrow.”Piastri took fourth place in Sprint Qualifying – only a little under two hundredths away from his team mate – and stated that the car was “feeling pretty good” following the addition of the updates.
“A bit of a messy day for everybody, I think, but the Mercedes still looks very strong, so I think that’s probably the biggest takeaway from today unfortunately,” the Australian said. “But we’ll see what we can do, see how we can optimise things a bit better and try our best again tomorrow.”
Norris and Piastri will line up ahead of the Ferrari pair of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. When quizzed on whether it could be a challenge to keep the fast-starting Scuderia cars at bay – and whether this could be a hindrance in trying to get ahead of the Mercedes duo – Piastri voiced confidence in the MCL40’s ability to get off the line.
“I mean, our starts have been better than the Ferraris’ all year, so we’re confident in ours,” the nine-time race winner continued. “I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Mercedes get theirs competitive as well, but until that time comes we’ll try our best to take advantage of it.”
