Lando Norris lauds ‘exceptional’ McLaren at Japanese GP as Oscar Piastri targets Max Verstappen at Suzuka start

Oscar Piastri qualified on the front row for the first time in his F1 career and Lando Norris will start third at Suzuka on Sunday; Watch the Japanese GP on Sky Sports F1 from 4.30am on Sunday with the lights out at 6am to see if McLaren can beat Max Verstappen

Lando Norris believes McLaren’s turnaround in Formula 1 fortunes over the course of this season has been “exceptional” after qualifying second and third for the Japanese GP – with the Briton and Oscar Piastri now hoping for a quick start against Max Verstappen in Sunday’s race.

While Verstappen left the entire field behind him at Suzuka on Saturday with the biggest pole winning margin in two decades, McLaren were the only other leading team to take solace in their qualifying form, with Piastri and Norris proving the Red Bull driver was the biggest challengers for the second. Ferrari and Mercedes cars.

The strong result was a world away from the start of the season, when both drivers failed to crack the top 10 in Bahrain.

“The jumps we’ve made in terms of positions are probably bigger than we expected,” Norris said Sky Sports F1.

“I don’t think at any point this season we were thinking ‘can we get close to qualifying on pole in certain places?’ ‘Could we have certain podium finishes this early in the season?’ At the beginning of this year it would have been a hard no.

But we were very patient. We knew very early in the year that we weren’t going to be great, but we knew some good things were coming.

“To be faster than Ferrari, faster than Mercedes, because I have a much worse car, I think that’s what has been so impressive. The team is doing an exceptional job, I think that is evident in how much we have improved and what we have to fight for.” front rows and stuff like that. It’s deserved.”

McLaren CEO Zak Brown added: “That was strong. We have been strong all weekend. Oscar and Lando drive great. They are definitely making the most of this car that all the men and women at McLaren have given them.

“It’s pretty fast and we have to keep pushing to see if we can get that Max man! The team at the factory who designed and built were confident that we would achieve results.

“But I have always been cautiously optimistic and still am, from the beginning of the year, day by day. You have to compliment the team, what a fantastic job they are doing.”

Piastri in the front row for the first time

On Saturday, Piastri’s performance was particularly striking. The Australian rookie marked his first appearance at Suzuka by beating the highly regarded Norris to take the first front row start for a Grand Prix of his emerging career.

Piastri, whose strong start in F1 earned him a new long-term McLaren contract earlier this week, becomes the fifth driver from his home country to achieve the feat on the front row.

“It is of course nice to have that,” he said at the press conference. There haven’t been that many Australians in F1, period. It’s obviously not a record I’m trying to chase as I’m on the fifth front row from Australia, but it’s nice to have that success, especially so early in my F1 career.

“Some people don’t get this opportunity in their entire career. So for me it’s a privilege to get it in my first six or seven months. Of course I want to try to be the next Australian to break other records or add to those lists. A good start, but of course I want to be able to do even more.”

Speak with Sky Sports F1Piastri explained where McLaren’s 2023 challenger had improved since the difficult first weeks of the season.

“It does everything a little bit better,” he said. “I would say the strengths and weaknesses are still quite similar, and we are trying to improve and work on them, but the most important thing right now is to make it faster and however we can achieve that, it’s good .If we can get him off the line, we’ll try!’

The fact that Red Bull is usually even superior over a race distance than over a single lap means that both Piastri and Norris kept their race day expectations firmly in check in their post-qualifying interviews.

Nevertheless, with two cars directly behind Verstappen for Sunday morning’s race start at 6am – live on Sky Sports F1 -Norris offered the hope that recent history could repeat itself.

“If we can get him off the line, we will try,” the Briton said. “We did something similar at Silverstone. The Red Bull is six tenths per lap faster in one run and normally the race speed of a Red Bull is even better.

“You never know; at Suzuka a lot of things can happen, they have done that in the past, and we have two cars to catch him. But we also have a lot of fast cars behind us.

“We have Perez driving a much faster car than us and Leclerc driving a similarly competitive car. So it will probably be a race with more cars behind us, but we have two cars there and good pace all weekend, so we can be sure we can have a good one.”

Sky Sports F1’s live Japanese GP schedule

Sunday September 24

• 4:30 am: Grand Prix Sunday: build-up of the Japanese GP*
• 6am: THE JAPANESE GRAND PRIZE*
• 8am: Checkered flag: response from the Japanese GP*
• 9am: Ted’s notebook
• 9.30am: Japanese GP race repeat
• 12:00: Highlights of the Japanese GP

*Also on the Sky Sports Main Event

Watch the entire Japanese Grand Prix weekend live on Sky Sports F1. Stream F1 on Sky Sports with NOW. Cancel at any time