Chinese Grand Prix Qualifying: Lando Norris takes responsibility for P3 finish

Dominika Jordan
Mar 22, 2025, 06:34 AM ET

In a candid reflection following the Chinese Grand Prix qualifying, Lando Norris attributed his third-place grid start to committing "too many mistakes" during the session. This admission came as his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, secured pole position, with Mercedes' George Russell claiming the second spot.

Norris's qualifying result marked a significant improvement from his sprint race performance, where he qualified sixth and finished eighth. Despite this progress, he acknowledged that minor errors prevented him from closing the 0.152-second gap between his time and Piastri's fastest lap.

"It's just tight and close, but it was a much better job than we did yesterday [in sprint qualifying] -- and I did yesterday," Norris remarked. "So the car was feeling much better and yeah, I was feeling definitely more comfortable."

Reflecting on his performance, Norris mentioned, "Still too many mistakes from my side. I'm not as comfortable as I was in Australia [when Norris won the opening round of the season]. Just tricky, but it is for everyone, and I just haven't done the best job -- and Oscar has done a very good job."

Emphasizing the caliber of his teammate's performance, Norris added, "When you do that kind of good job, then it can easily be the quickest car. So a couple of things, and just more my driving -- just that rhythm of knowing exactly what to do where, how much. Also, when you have the tyres and if you push a bit too much, the tyres can bite quite quickly too. So many different things, but also just Oscar's done a good job and I've not done a perfect job. It's tight, so I just paid the price for not doing well enough."

Oscar Piastri's excellent form continued from the sprint race, where he finished second behind Lewis Hamilton. Norris expressed a desire to match his teammate's pace in the main race, saying, "I think Oscar's shown great pace. I definitely haven't -- especially from the race pace. And whenever we struggle with front graining, it's something I just struggle with a lot personally. So yeah, difficult for me. It's been therefore a difficult weekend, just trying to deal with those things. It's something I'm not strong enough in. But yeah, I've got a long, long night ahead of me to sit down and go through the data and see what I can improve for tomorrow."

As the McLaren team prepares for Sunday's grand prix, all eyes will be on both drivers to see if Norris can elevate his performance to match that of his impressive teammate, Piastri.