Lando Norris admits he "kind of looks like the loser" as the McLaren driver suffers from a disastrous qualifying

Lando Norris admits he ends up looking like a loser after the McLaren driver's call of being the first to set a lap in Q3 proved to be a disaster. The qualifying session in Baku was a strange one, as we had as many as 6 red flags.

In the end, in Q3, it came down to the final lap with some rain spitting down on the track, and the driver that would nail it would end up securing a strong position. For McLaren and Lando Norris, the duo made the call to be the first one on track.

The call has both merits and demerits. The merits are that any yellow flag or a stoppage would not have hurt him, as the incident would have taken place behind him. At the same time, it also meant that the McLaren driver was going to set the time in the worst conditions, as the track continued to get better with more rubber being rolled onto it.

As it turned out, the final lap was not the best for Lando Norris, and at the same time, there were no stoppages. As a result, we had the McLaren driver only qualifying in P7. Talking to Sky Sports afterward, the driver felt that the decision was not the right one, and he felt a bit like a loser after it all played out. He said,

“I think it was mistake from my side, from our side, to go out the pit lane first. It couldn’t have been – if there was a yellow flag further back or a red, we would have looked like the heroes and everyone else would have looked like losers. Now I kind of look like the loser and them heroes, but it’s the price you pay sometimes around here and the risks you’ve got to take."

He added,

“But it was still spitting a little bit, so I think anyone who was further back, just more grip. Just a decision that didn’t work out in the end. Something we’ll review and try to do better next time."

McLaren boss explains Lando Norris' strategy

McLaren boss Andrea Stella explained the reasoning behind sending Lando Norris early and surmised that it came down to getting a lap in and evading the yellow and red flag stoppages that had become too frequent during the session. Talking to Sky Sports, Stella explained the team strategy as he said,

"There was a bit of pressure with time, there’s a pressure with yellow flags. So, I think in our condition, it was important to put a lap together. Ultimately, the lap didn’t come as good as we wanted."

He added,

"But being first gives you the safety from a yellow flag point of view, you can control the warm up of the tyres on the out-lap. We thought that was alright from that point of view, it was just more a matter of executing the lap."

Lando Norris will now start the race in P7, while his teammate Oscar Piastri will be in P9 for the race on Sunday.

Edited by Charanjot Singh Kohli