Lando Norris says he took extra satisfaction from taking pole position for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix because he was in such trouble with the conditions early on in the qualifying session.
Qualifying started at 7:30am local time on Sunday morning due to the weather forecast, having been postponed from Saturday afternoon, and with an earlier race start of 12:30pm to follow. Norris won Saturday’s Sprint in the dry, but in the wet he only made it through Q1 in 15th place and was well off the pace before finding big improvements in a delayed session to take pole position from George Russell.
“There was a lot going on today, but super, super happy, because I was struggling a lot at the beginning of qualifying — I had a lot of work to do,” Norris said. “I was not comfortable at all, so to end up on pole… I worked at it a lot through qualifying, I had a lot of areas I needed to improve on but I did exactly that. So a little bit surprised, again — I’ve been surprised a little bit lately, so a little bit surprised to be on pole — but I felt good in the end.”
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Alex Albon was provisionally alongside Norris on the front row late in Q3 before crashing heavily and being ruled out of the race due to the damage, and the McLaren driver admits that was an added aspect to consider when it came to how hard he could push.
“Very [difficult], probably more than it looks on TV at times. You’re always trying to find that next little bit but you saw how many people were going off, so it was easy to end up badly and end up in a wall or do something where you might not even make the race later today.
“So that risk/reward was not easy today, especially from where I was in Q1 I found it very tough to know, ‘How much more can I push?’ That’s why I’m happy, because it’s a relieving qualifying after something like this.”
Norris says he won’t be paying attention to how the race is unfolding behind him when it starts early this afternoon, despite Max Verstappen provisionally 17th on the grid, as he believes any driver can be a threat in the wet.
“I’ve got some quick guys behind — George put in a nice lap, Yuki [Tsunoda] has been flying in the wet all day today. So it’s never easy in these conditions. It’s never as much as just settling down and getting on with it — as much as that’s what I would like to do, it’s not always the easiest thing. We’ll prepare well. I hope we can get a race in — that would be a good start — and I’m excited to see what we can do.”