Lando Norris and McLaren seemed to have carried over their outstanding form from Silverstone as they have begun the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend on a positive note. The Briton qualified a brilliant third on the grid, with Oscar Piastri in the other McLaren qualifying just behind him. Despite putting in yet another strong performance, Norris was unhappy with his failure to grab pole. He expressed his unhappiness on the team radio after missing out on the same to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton by just a tenth.
Norris was unhappy because he missed out on a golden opportunity as both Hamilton and Verstappen made mistakes on their final runs during Q3. However, unfortunately for the 23-year-old, he came agonizingly close but could not do enough to register his first career pole.
Lando Norris apologizes to McLaren for missing out on pole
Despite putting on an impressive performance to qualify third on the grid, Lando Norris was not happy with himself. As a result, he apologized to his McLaren team on the radio immediately following the conclusion of the qualifying session.
“Sorry, it was not a good enough lap,” said the Briton on the team radio. When his engineer replied, “Ok mate, no worries, we can fight from there,” Norris expressed his frustrations with himself. The 23-year-old said in anguish, “Yeah, I know. But I want to be on pole. I don’t want to be P3“.
It is fair to say that the McLaren driver is disappointed with himself because he thought this was a moment when he could register his first career pole. And after stating the same, he elaborated on his radio message by explaining his disappointment during his post-qualifying interview.
Norris has mixed feelings over his qualifying performance
Since McLaren never imagined that they would be so competitive in Hungary, Lando Norris believes that they have had a strong result so far with their qualifying performance. However, at the same time he believes that since both Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen made mistakes during their qualifying runs, he believes he could have done more to snatch pole.
As quoted by Sky Sports F1, he explained, “I’m not like unhappy. I guess I am just frustrated with my lap. Like I know Lewis made a few mistakes. Max wasn’t in the best confidence level, so there’s always like what else could you have done“?
However, when things are put into context, Norris knows more than anyone that it seems that good times are ahead for McLaren after a disastrous start to the 2023 season. At the beginning of this season, the British outfit were even struggling to get into Q2.
And now it seems that they have been in the running for pole position for the past two races. Hence, it seems likely that if Norris carries on the good work that he has been doing, then he is likely to achieve pole position and much more sooner rather than later.
