Lando Norris leaning on Daniel Ricciardo confidence as Russian win target set

Russian Grand Prix

Norris leaning on Ricciardo confidence as Russian win target set

Norris scored McLaren's first pole since Brazil 2012

Sam Hall

Sunday 26 September 2021 09:20

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Lando Norris has set his sights on a Russian Grand Prix victory after taking a leaf out of Daniel Ricciardo's book of confidence.

In the recent Italian Grand Prix, Daniel Ricciardo ended McLaren's nine-year wait for an F1 race victory after starting on the front row.

On that occasion, Ricciardo said after the sprint event he would take the win whilst Norris was more pragmatic in his expectations from third on the grid.

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But after scoring his maiden F1 pole in Sochi, and the team's first since the Brazilian Grand Prix of 2012, Norris has decided to be more upbeat like Ricciardo.

“Daniel was a lot more positive and confident of it last time out," said Norris. "He said he was going to go out and get a win and he did, so maybe I need to change my approach a little bit.

“Normally I’m a bit more downbeat and if it turns out positive it’s better rather than thinking positively and it coming up with a negative.

“I’ll try my best and I will go for it. I believe we can [win]. There is an opportunity for it but Mercedes are still as quick as they have been all season.

"This is probably one of their best circuits of the whole season so it’s going to be a good challenge but I’m up for it.”

Russian GP cancelled running creates "unknowns"

The final practice session, scheduled for Saturday morning, was cancelled due to the forecasted torrential rain.

That led to the teams treating Friday's second practice session in different ways as some focused on qualifying and others on long-run pace, so muddying the picture heading into the grand prix.

“Do I think we can win?" questioned Norris. "I think it’s definitely harder to answer than in Monza, harder to give a clear answer because everyone was doing quite different things on Saturday.

“Some people were trying to treat P2 as a P3 and some were just treating P2 as a P2, so understanding everyone’s actual pace is not as clear as what it was in Monza.

“So I think we have a few more unknowns but we will do our homework and review everything from testing on Friday and see what we can do."