Lando Norris said he wished his pole position was for the grand prix after leading a dramatic sprint race qualifying session.
The McLaren driver beat Lewis Hamilton to lead the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s sprint race as rain fell at the Shanghai International Circuit.
Drivers faced a sudden change in conditions when rain fell late in the second part of qualifying. Lap times rose by 20 seconds during the final phase of qualifying.
“I didn’t do the first two laps well at all,” admitted Norris. “I got a good final one, a good enough one for pole so I’m happy. Sad it’s not for a proper qualifying, but good enough.”
Having only had a single hour of practice earlier in the day before the qualifying session, Norris admitted he had some concerns when the weather took a turn for the worst.
“It was tricky,” he said. “You’re always nervous going into a session like this, especially before quali when you know it’s going to rain.
“I was quite happy with how it was in the dry. I think we had a good pace all weekend so far. So I got a bit nervous [with] the conditions where you’ve just got to risk a lot, you’ve got to push, build tyre temperature and so forth.”
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However his initial runs in SQ3 were compromised by traffic ahead of him. “I just kept catching the Ferrari so I had to keep backing off,” Norris said.
“The first two I aborted on both, so the last lap was all or nothing. But it was getting wetter and wetter, so the conditions of the final two laps were a lot worse than the second lap, at least.
“So I was a little bit nervous and I made a few mistakes, started to aquaplane quite a bit. But it’s good fun, it gets your heart going and to end up on top is exactly what we wanted. It’s a nice surprise and a good position for tomorrow.”
Having done much less representative running than usual, Norris admitted he has “not a clue” how his car will perform in tomorrow’s race.
“We did some of our work this morning, we did some consecutive laps to try and understand. But it depends what the weather is. There’s still a chance of rain tomorrow, so if it’s like this, then I think the chances are relatively decent.
“But the race is still very different to qualifying so I’m sure everyone’s going to catch up a bit tomorrow. But the pace is good whether it’s wet or dry, and I think we’re in a good position.”
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