Lando Norris ‘wishes he could go back’ on McLaren F1 setup changes after qualifying

Lando Norris was left to regret changes he made to the setup on his McLaren F1 car ahead of qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix.

Norris’ challenge for pole position petered out in qualifying for Sunday’s grid, securing fifth ahead of McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri.

The British driver had shown impressive pace in sprint qualifying on Friday, setting a blistering lap on the mediums in SQ2.

Norris struggled to get it together on the softs, leaving him ninth on the grid for the sprint before retiring on the opening lap following contact with the Aston Martins.

A number of tweaks to the setup didn’t aid Norris’ chances as he still favoured the mediums in Q3 before completing his last run on the more favoured soft tyre.

Reflecting on qualifying, Norris felt that he should have been “higher up” on the grid.

"I think we should be higher up,” Norris said. “We did what we thought was right but on track sometimes things work out a little bit differently.

“We made some of those changes and I wish I could go back on them right now before tomorrow, but obviously we can't.”

Norris acknowledged that McLaren had made progress in terms of managing the tyres, but conceded that he wasn’t as confident on track.

"We did better than yesterday in terms of managing the tyres, but struggled a bit more with the car,” he added.

"We made some changes but potentially just not in the right direction. I was a lot more confident yesterday than I was today so, yeah, just some things to review.

"But obviously a better qualifying, it's close. I was more confident yesterday, I lost a little bit today and I think that showed in the lap times.”

On the other side of the McLaren garage, Piastri was encourage by his personal performance, feeling it was “pretty representative” of the team’s competitiveness in Miami.

“Honestly that’s pretty representative,” he said. “We maybe expected to be a bit closer to Ferrari but they were stronger today. I was pretty happy with that qualifying. It was probably my most well-rounded qualifying of the year. Looking at the gaps to everyone and Lando, I am pretty happy with that.”