Norris ‘not surprised’ to miss out on Sprint pole in Austin as he voices hopes of getting ‘back ahead’

Lando Norris admitted that he was “not surprised” to just miss out on pole to Max Verstappen during Sprint Qualifying at the United States Grand Prix, though the McLaren driver remains hopeful of getting “back ahead” during the Sprint itself.

Norris had displayed good pace throughout Friday at the Circuit of The Americas, the Briton having topped the timesheets during the sole practice hour before leading the way in SQ1 and SQ2.

However, he was beaten by Verstappen in the final moments of SQ3, with the Dutchman’s effort of 1m 32.143s putting him 0.071s clear of Norris. When asked how he felt about losing out after the session, Norris suggested that it had not been a complete shock.

“Of course I would have loved to have been on pole, but [it’s] not a surprise for us to be a bit slower than the Red Bull lately,” the 25-year-old said.

“I’m still pretty happy. I don’t know how much I was off by, but there are a little couple of things probably here and there that I could have improved on, and I just caught a few bumps a little bit wrong let’s say, but that’s just the difficulty of this track. Otherwise all happy.”

When informed that the gap had been 0.071s, Norris responded: “Oh, quite a bit.”

Reflecting further on how the car had felt through Free Practice 1 and Sprint Qualifying, the nine-time race winner continued: “I’m sure if you asked most people are they confident through Sector 1 with the bumps they’d probably say no, so it depends.

“I think around here you just have to be happy with not being very comfortable, I think that’s kind of the trick. Otherwise [it was] okay. I think the laps were pretty good, obviously found good steps of time throughout, just easy to catch the bump in the wrong angle or a bit too much throttle here and there over the bumps and you probably lose seven hundredths.

“Not the end of the world, but of course [I] would have loved to have been that little bit quicker.”

And in terms of whether he still believes the fight is on for the win in Saturday’s Sprint, Norris answered: “I certainly hope so, I think normally our race pace is a bit better – we’ve struggled the whole year with our Quali pace, especially when it’s close and it’s been close today.

"That’s why I would say I’m not surprised, but we have more hopes for the race that we can get back ahead.”

Fellow McLaren driver Oscar Piastri was also unable to beat Verstappen, the Australian claiming P3 with a lap time three-tenths off that set by his team mate.

When quizzed on where he had lost time during his effort, Piastri explained: “In quite a few places, I think. A pretty scruffy lap, to be honest. Just didn’t really get it together, so in some ways I feel a bit fortunate to be third.

“I think the pace in the car is good – it’s nothing major, it’s not like it’s been a disastrous day at all. It’s just been a little bit of a messy lap that I can hopefully tidy up for tomorrow.”

Piastri will line up behind Verstappen and Norris for Saturday’s Sprint and will be keeping an eye on what unfolds in front of him when the 100-kilometre dash gets underway.

“We’ll see what happens at the start,” the 24-year-old said. “If I can get a good launch and try and put myself in the right spot – knowing where the right spot is in Turn 1 here is often tricky, so we’ll see what happens up ahead.”