Norris and Piastri frustrated after crucial lap time deletions
It looked like McLaren was set for another big opportunity this week after Lando Norris finished in second place and Oscar Piastri was shown in fourth as the chequered flag fell on qualifying for Sunday's Qatar Grand Prix.
But even as Norris joined Max Verstappen and George Russell in parc ferme to speak to the media, he was suddenly hustled away as word came down that his final flying lap time had been deleted for a track limits violation.
His place was taken by Piastri, but the media were halfway through the interview when word came down that he, too, had had his crucial push lap struck down for a similar infringement.
It meant that Lewis Hamilton was promoted to the top three while Piastri dropped to his previous time which was good enough for sixth place on Sunday's grid.
Worst hit was Norris, who had already had a number of previous laps deleted for straying wide. It meant that he ended Q3 without a time on the board, resulting in tenth place for the Grand Prix start.
“P***ed off," Norris said when asked later how he felt about the outcome of qualifying. "I just had a correction on oversteer and I went off [on my final lap].
It was all the more galling for the young Briton because up to then, the pace of the MCL60 had "been mint. The team have done a good job, but I just messed it up.”
Norris wasn't feeling particularly buoyed by the obvious speed of the car at Lusail International Circuit. "I know, but I don’t think like that," he sighed.
"I just think of the job I’m meant to do, which is put in good laps and not make mistakes, and that’s all I did today. So not a good day for me.”
Piastri had made fewer mistakes overall in the session, and has the consolation of a decent starting spot for Sunday. “Obviously a shame," he acknowledged. "I just pushed a little bit hard on the last lap. A shame because the car looked quick.
“We obviously get another crack at it tomorrow in [the Sprint Shootout] and then the Sprint too," he added. "We’re a bit further back now for the main race where the most points are, but there’s definitely points up for grabs tomorrow so we’ll see what we can do.
"It’s very tight and it’s so easy to make mistakes. The track’s very slippery too, so not making things easy for us, but we’ll try again obviously."
Team boss Andrea Stella acknowledged it had been a "disappointing" outcome but refused to think of Sunday's race as an exercise in damage limitation. "It's a long weekend ahead of us and we don't only want to limit damage, we want to recover entirely the positions and go back to where we belong," he insisted.
"While it's a tough result to accept, at the same time the weekend is quite long," he pointed out. "It's unfortunate, it's a bit disappointing obviously, because the result doesn't reflect the potential of the car, which today was again quite strong, which is encouraging.
"It looks like on this kind of track layout we are the second force at the moment," he added. "We have a sprint shootout, we have a sprint race, the race itself will be quite long and interesting from a tyre point of view, plenty of opportunity to recover."
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