Lando Norris has McLaren’s hopes up for the Chinese Grand Prix after beating Ferrari in qualifying

Lando Norris hopes McLaren can have a “good day” at Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix after a difficult qualifying session for the team, with the Briton set to line up P4 ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri in P5.

It was a disappointing start for Norris on Saturday, as the Brit slipped back from pole position in the Sprint race due to a first-lap mistake and finished the race 100km down in P6.

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However, he looked more positive following his qualifying performance later in the day, as he and Piastri finished the session ahead of the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.

Asked how he felt after the session, Norris replied: “Well, to be honest. I think being in front of two Ferraris is always a positive thing, being behind two Red Bulls is not surprising at all. They are very strong, as they showed in the (Sprint) race today – Red Bull are in another league here.

“But I think (it was) a good day for us in terms of speed. It buys us a bit of freedom on the Ferraris, but it’s more likely that they will pass us tomorrow. I think we are in a good position, I think our battle will be with Aston (Martin) and maybe with Mercedes at some point .

“We’ll see, but today I think it was a good day. Even with what happened this morning, I think our pace was not bad compared to Mercedes, compared to Aston. We’re in the same boat, Red Bull are only a mile away and Ferrari are another big place. ahead of us. And everybody else I think we’re there or close, and (it should be) a good race.”

As for whether McLaren could challenge for the podium, Norris suggested that there was “no chance” of this, but spoke positively of how his team performed much stronger in Shanghai than they had previously expected before the weekend.

HIGHLIGHTS: Relive qualifying in China as Verstappen takes pole and Sainz crashes

“The Red Bulls will probably compete with everyone a couple of times,” added Norris. “Ferrari I don’t think will be as fast as them, but they will be close or close enough. I think they are out of our league, once they had the fresh air this morning it was easy for them to pull away.

“So yes, not expecting anything amazing. We said before the weekend we would struggle, I think we’ve done a better job than we thought with low fuel, but certainly in high fuel everything we expect is happening, and I think that’s why we struggled so much.

“I’m still looking forward to it, I think we can still have a good race, we can still fight for good points and if we get lucky and other things it can still be a good day.”

Both Norris and Piastri looked fast in the closing stages of Q3 as several drivers battled it out for P2, a position that eventually went to Perez. Reflecting on his own episode, Piastri was left with an overall positive feeling.

“(It felt) a smart, respectable qualifying session, for sure,” the Australian said. “I think (there were) a couple of scruffy corners on the last lap, but all in all I think I can be happy with that. So yeah, happier than I was this morning.

HOW IT HAPPENED: Follow all the action from qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix

“I think we’ll wait and see how our pace is tomorrow, but yeah, it’s definitely a good place to start. (We have) fast cars behind us, so let’s see what we can do.”

Asked if the team had made many changes to the car after the Sprint – with the new parc ferme rules allowing this before qualifying – Piastri explained: “Little. The thing is that with these cars it’s very simple in what you want to do to make them go faster, and so there aren’t many things you can change that can revolutionize the car from one session to another, or at least for us.

“We’ve made a few adjustments here and there, but nothing major. (I) think I drove better, I think we got the tires in a good window and, yeah, a good session.