Norris: Leading faster rivals was “fun” but highlights McLaren’s F1 deficit

Norris starred in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring as he beat Sergio Perez to fourth, ultimately inheriting third on the grid after Bottas’ grid penalty.

The McLaren driver maintained third at the start and kept his two faster rivals at bay until Lap 9, where Norris let Perez past into Turn 3.

Bottas overtook him a lap later as Norris settled into fifth place.

Despite qualifying within a tenth of the Mercedes pair, Norris says race day at the Red Bull Ring showed McLaren still has a lot of work to do still.

“Yes it is. A bit of the fun comes from knowing that I’m in a worse car and I’m ahead of them,” Norris said. “It is cool also realizing how much quicker they are today proves how much better their car is. But on a day like yesterday I out-qualified one of them. So we are doing a good job in qualifying at times.

“Maybe not at Paul Ricard but we are extracting everything we can on Saturday, and we did yesterday. But days like today also show how much more we need to improve and make the car better and things like that. We have a lot of work to do.”

Norris conceded that if he fought harder, it would have compromised him in his battle with Carlos Sainz for fifth.

“It is never nice to do because you don’t want to give up any position,” Norris said. “We did our homework. I already knew yesterday who I was going to be racing against. It is quite straightforward and the relapse or I could try and see what our pace was like and how long I could keep them behind, and it gives me a good gap to the guys behind them.

“But I also need to make the decision when it is starting to hurt my own race. If I did it for too much longer I would’ve been a lot more vulnerable at the end of the race to Carlos.”