Lando Norris reveals 'longest debrief of his life' led to McLaren Qatar revival

Qatar Grand Prix

Norris reveals 'longest debrief of his life' led to McLaren Qatar revival

McLaren driver had two-hour analysis after practice

Ian Parkes & Will Gray

Sunday 21 November 2021 10:30

Lando Norris has revealed to enduring 'the longest debrief of his life' ahead of a shift in form on F1's inaugural visit to Qatar.

Going into qualifying, Norris and team-mate Daniel Ricciardo had struggled around the Losail International Circuit, with the Briton notably 1.5secs off the pace in the final hour-long practice session on Saturday.

Following that, Norris then sat down with his engineers to thoroughly trawl through the data in a bid to find the smallest of improvements, with the hard work paying off as he landed sixth on the grid.

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"We weren’t expecting P6 at all," said Norris. "We were expecting to be a lot further down than that, so very happy.

“We struggled a lot in P3 because the wind changed massively. I did the longest debrief I have probably ever done in my life trying to understand the session and it paid off.

“It’s just a tricky circuit, very high speed, very difficult. The timings are probably more important than anything here, the timing of turning in and knowing where you’re going to end up with track limits.

“It's so easy to run five millimetres too wide, smash the front wing and lose everything, so I feel like I’ve done a good job.

"From now on we will have two hour-long debriefs. Maybe it gets better and better the longer it is.”

Norris concern with soft-tyre start

Norris, who starts directly behind midfield runners Pierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso, is predicting the race to be problematic.

The high-medium speed corners that make up the majority of the layout in Qatar is set to mean overtaking will be at a premium.

Starting on the soft tyre, Norris is also wary of the threat from a number of drivers on the medium Pirellis behind him.

“It’s going to be tough," added Norris. "Starting on the soft is not what we really wanted, especially with Carlos [Sainz] on the medium.

“It’s going to make our life quite tough and he is going to have a much easier race than we are.

“Following is tough, especially in the final sector, the high speed, the wind is so unpredictable so its very difficult to pre-empt what’s going to happen.

"It’s going to be a tricky race with risk versus reward.”