Rand Norris says he never worried about the gap with Oscar Piastri at the Belgian Grand Prix on Friday after beating his frustrated teammate into pole position in the qualifying round on Saturday.
Piastri was the fastest in qualifying for the Sprint, with nearly 0.6 seconds more than Max Verstappen and 0.6 seconds on Norris, making his performance strong at Spa Franco Champ. However, Norris fought back to take the pole on Saturday afternoon, but he defeated Piastri in under 0.1 seconds, saying the gap was too much on Friday.
“Everyone was pretty worried yesterday,” Norris said. “I wasn’t that far away, it was just a small problem we had, so I was confident yesterday and today.
“A third is just a slipstream and you haven’t stepped out of the pit lane first… there’s nothing to worry about.
“Oscars do a good job all weekend, so we push each other a lot. It’s hard to see where your strengths and weaknesses are…and you learn quickly from each other.
What he said had never been before from his teammates at the beginning of the weekend was losing a third quarter mistake and that he ended his hopes of spending a lot of lap times and taking poles.
“I think (Paul lost plenty of time),” Piastri said. “The raps up to that point were strong, but it really doesn’t matter if you couldn’t do that. I didn’t. I was a bit disappointed.
“To be honest, it’s very similar (on Friday). I’ll rap a little more on soft, explore a little more limit, push it a little more.
Piastri repeated Norris’ comment that McLaren drivers are in a tough situation when they can see each other’s data.
“We’re a good teammate pairing and we learn a lot from each other every weekend,” he said. “That makes us a really good team, but it also makes it difficult when you’re trying to compete with each other, and it feels like you did an okay job today.