Lando Norris Set For Best Start Of 2021

After qualifying in P4 for the Styrian Grand Prix, Lando Norris will start from P3 on the grid after Valtteri Bottas received a three-spot grid place penalty for his spin in Friday’s second practice session.

Daniel Ricciardo had a promising Friday, but couldn’t replicate that pace on the Saturday, and missed the cut for Q3, and will start from P13.

Lando Norris Hunting More Points

With his start at the pointy end of the gris secured, Lando Norris quickly turned his attention to the race, where he is focussed on another big points haul.

“A very good quali – P3 in the end. The car felt good throughout all of qualifying, I was confident and could always make the small improvements needed. That gave us P3, which is nice – especially to be only two-and-a-bit-tenths off pole. A lot of positives and a very good position for us to score some solid points tomorrow, but it’s a long race and that’s where the points are. That’s the important thing,” said Norris.

Disappointment For Daniel Ricciardo

There was disappointment for Daniel Ricciardo, who was unable to continue his recent improvements, and had to settle for a lowly P13 in qualifying.

“Not the best day, I don’t really know why. Obviously yesterday was good and the afternoon was really encouraging. We just lost a lot of pace overnight with this morning being quite slow and then quali was a similar story. Bit of a strange one at the moment. Yesterday looked really promising, so it’s a shame. I would never have expected to be P13. We’ll try to understand it and have a strong race tomorrow,” added Ricciardo.

Best Qualifying Of 2021 For McLaren

With Lando Norris sliding up to P3, McLaren will enjoy their best starting position of the year on Sunday, much to the delight of team principal Andreas Seidl.

“P4 in quali today – translating into starting P3 tomorrow – is the best grid position we’ve achieved so far this year. Well done to Lando, who was flying on every single lap he did, and to the team for a clean execution of the quali session. Of course, Daniel and ourselves are disappointed we couldn’t progress further than P13 with his car. This is something we’ll analyse, reset and go again tomorrow with the clear objective to get back into the points.

“That aside, it was great to see the one-lap performance we had in the car today. Big thank you to everyone here at the track and back home for working very hard to make this happen. We’re looking forward to another exciting race. The aim is clear: we want to keep scoring good points for our battle in the Constructors’ Championship,” concluded Seidl.