How and why second and fourth suddenly turned into sixth and 10th for McLaren on the grid for Sunday's Grand Prix in Qatar; McLaren have another chance to capitalise on car's rapid pace in Saturday's Sprint Shootout and Sprint race, live on Sky Sports F1
Friday 6 October 2023 22:26, UK
A frustrated Lando Norris criticised his own driving after seeing a front-row start for Sunday's Qatar Grand Prix undone by track limit violations, as both McLaren drivers had fast laps deleted after the end of qualifying.
But Lewis Hamilton offered words of comfort for Norris after inheriting a place in the top three at the penalised McLarens' expense, suggesting "Lando should be up here" instead of down in 10th.
Norris had three different laps deleted by Race Control during qualifying for running over white lines and off track at the Losail International Circuit - including both his timed laps in the decisive Q3 phase. Had either lap stood, then Norris would have comfortably been second on the grid ahead of the Mercedes' to dominant polesitter Max Verstappen.
"I just had a correct on oversteer and I went off," said a rueful Norris about his final attempt, when he went off the track at Turn 10.
"The team have done a good job, I just messed it up."
Put to him that he still had shown the kind of rapid pace to suggest he could salvage the remainder of the Sprint weekend, which sees effectively a standalone event take place on Saturday before the main Grand Prix on Sunday, Norris could not be consoled.
"I don't think like that, I just think of the job I meant to do today," he replied. "Which is put in good laps, don't make mistakes, and that's all I did today [make mistakes].
"So not a good day for me."
Team-mate Oscar Piastri had originally finished fourth at the end of Q3 and had looked set to move up one place into the top three when Norris was demoted in the minutes after qualifying ended.
But in confusing scenes during the post-session interviews for the top three in parc ferme as Race Control took time to delete the offending laps and reshuffle the order, Piastri started his in third place on the grid but by the end of it was down in sixth.
It meant that what had briefly been positions of second and fourth on Sunday's grid for Norris and Piastri respectively became 10th and sixth.
"Obviously, a shame but the car felt reasonable," said Piastri. "Just pushed just a little bit hard on the last lap. So a shame because the car was quick.
"We get another crack at it [on Saturday] in qualifying [the Sprint Shootout] and then the Sprint too, so we'll see what we can do, It's very tight and it's so easy to make mistakes, the track is very slippery so it's not making things easy for us. But we'll try again."
Mercedes were the chief beneficiaries of McLaren's demotions on what was already a strong Friday for the former champions, with George Russell moved onto the front row and Hamilton into third.
But Hamilton still had sympathy for Norris.
The seven-time champion believes the revised kerbing introduced at the circuit for this weekend is actually doing its job of proving a lap-time disadvantage if a car goes beyond them, suggesting his countryman's error would have only cost him lap time rather than gained it.
"The new kerbs are great," said Hamilton in the post-qualifying press conference.
"When I went round the track yesterday [Thursday] on the scooter I thought the kerbs looked quite big but I think they are actually really good and when you go beyond the highest point of a kerb you lose time.
"So I don't feel like at this track we need to have track limits [rules]. It's something that the new stewards, or the new steward, brought in a couple of years ago and it's… Lando should be up here.
"I think it's a good learning and we can take these new kerbs to a bunch of other tracks because MotoGP are fine with these kerbs and we can have these in Austria, for example. You should be able to utilise as much as possible but when you go beyond them you lose time, so it shouldn't be the white line necessarily. But it's not up to me to decide."
There were 22 track limits offences recorded during the one-hour qualifying session, committed by 12 drivers - more than half the 20-car grid.
Saturday October 7
Sunday October 8
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