Lando Norris was enthused by his performance during Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix as he delivered “one of the best laps I’ve ever done”, though he will not be able to fully reap the rewards due to a grid penalty.
Before any track action took place at Spa-Francorchamps, McLaren confirmed that Norris would have to serve a 10-place grid drop after they chose to fit a new power electronics unit to his car, thereby exceeding the permitted allocation for the component.
The decision coincided with an increase in pace for the Briton, who seized provisional pole before Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen bumped him down to P3, which will become P13 on race day.
Norris then aborted his second flying lap after going wide and rattling over the gravel at the Fagnes Chicane, where Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly both crashed earlier in the weekend – but Norris’ initial time was still enough to remain third on the timesheets.
Asked to summarise the session, Norris said: “Very good actually – pretty surprised to be P3. My lap was a pretty mega lap. It was probably one of the best laps I’ve ever done in Qualifying so I’m pretty happy with today.
“It’s just a shame I start P13 tomorrow. It doesn’t matter too much but I’ve been happy all weekend. I feel like I’ve been doing a good job all weekend.
“I’m getting the most out of the car and I feel like I did that again today. P3 was certainly the best we could achieve.”
McLaren chose to implement the updated component to address the reliability issues that saw Norris experience failures in China, Japan and Monaco, and selected the Belgian Grand Prix due to its overtaking opportunities.
Nevertheless, the reigning World Champion insisted that he’s keeping his expectations low and will target another valuable points haul.
“We can certainly move forward, but how far into the top eight is a different question,” he explained. “I think it was an amazing lap to put me P3 but it wasn’t like I was miles ahead of the others – I was like half a tenth or a tenth.
“If you’re half a tenth or a tenth quicker, especially with the lap that I did, we’re probably not actually quicker than them.
“I don’t expect to have an incredible chance to get high up the order tomorrow, but I think if we can get in the top six maybe, that would be amazing. If it’s just the top eight, then I think that’s what we should expect.”
While Norris made an impression over one lap, the second McLaren of Oscar Piastri appeared to struggle more as he finished the session in P7, just over two tenths adrift of his team mate.
The Australian has enjoyed strong results at the circuit in the past, having won the 2025 event, but he admitted that he was missing speed and hadn’t felt at ease in his car throughout the sessions so far.
“It’s not been particularly easy all weekend, to be honest,” Piastri said. “I’m struggling with the balance of the car but today in particular has been a pretty big grind to try and get any lap time out of it, so not an easy day. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.
“In terms of race pace, it’s hard to know with everybody because no one did any proper running in FP2 – certainly Lando and I didn’t. It’s tricky to know. I think we’re probably third or fourth quickest but I think the order is very tight so we can make a difference somehow.”
