Norris regrets the change in settings, Piastri is satisfied – F1sport.cz

McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished fifth and sixth in qualifying for the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.

Saturday’s program at the city track in Miami did not start well for Norris. After contact with the Aston Martin pilots, the sprint ended for him in the first corner.

Before qualifying, he made changes to the setup with the team, but as he later admitted, he would prefer to return to the previous setup. But that’s no longer possible because of the rules.

“I think we were able to work better with the tires than yesterday. We made some changes and maybe not in the right direction. I was a lot more confident yesterday (Friday) than I was today,” Norris said.

“So there are a few things to review. But I think it was a better qualification. It’s tight. I was just more confident yesterday, for some reason I lost a bit today and I think that showed in the lap time.”

Norris ran a medium set of tires at the end of the second stint and the start of the third before switching back to the softs. He moved up to fifth place with his last attempt.

Compared to the result in the sprint shootout, this is an improvement of four places, but according to Norris, there is still room for improvement.

“I think we should be higher. We did what we thought was right, but sometimes things just work differently on the track. We’ve made some of these changes and now I wish we could revert them right now, but of course we can’t.”

Sixth place was the maximum, says Piastri

Oscar Piastri, who only has some of the innovations that McLaren brought to Florida, set the sixth time, according to him, he achieved the maximum.

“I think it’s pretty representative. Maybe we expected to be closer to Ferrari, but to be honest they looked stronger than us today,” said Piastri.

“I was quite satisfied with the qualification. I think overall it was maybe my best qualification this year, I’m happy with the overall performance. When I look at the loss to the others and to Lando, I am very satisfied.”