Lando Norris, McLaren Formula 1 driver, is “not expecting” to find himself on the pole for Hungarian Grand Prix this Saturday. He ended Friday practice at the second place.
The British driver tailed Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. He was 0.217 seconds behind the Monacan driver in FP2 at the Hungaroring. He ended FP1 on fourth ahead of George Russel.
Norris could only manage to find himself on fifth place at French GP, with a gap of 1.1 second from pole sitter. He finished the race at seventh position with a huge gap of 52 seconds from the top place.
Despite the better start at Hungary, Norris does not expect any battle for pole position. He attributed his McLaren progress to the team playing with higher settings of the engine.
Norris answered to a question regarding his fight for pole position. He added: “No. I mean, things are feeling good, the car’s in a good place.
“It seems to be suiting this track characteristic a little bit more for sure. But we’re always a little bit quick in FP2 than we end [up] being normally.
“We turn up [the engine] a little bit more than others do. Just to get our first reading of qualifying, which is what we got today.
“But we know everybody else, especially Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes normally step it up a lot tomorrow.
“I think we’re feeling good. I think we can say that the car is in a reasonable position. We’re probably a little bit ahead of where we were in Paul Ricard.
“But I’m not expecting to be fighting for pole or anything. Just aiming for a better position than we were [in France].”
Ricciardo echoes Norris
Daniel Ricciardo, second driver at McLaren, echoes the thoughts of Norris. He managed fifth place on Friday. He conceded that McLaren has not made a differential progress relative to French GP.
“I don’t know about the others. But I think we were actually competitive this morning as well,” Ricciardo said.
“So, yeah, being competitive in both sessions hopefully says something, hopefully says we are competitive.
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“I don’t think we’re competitive to fight for a pole, sorry to the fans. I’m not being pessimistic, just realistic.
“But I think if there is something, they will probably find a little bit more on Saturday come crunch time.
“It was a good day, we certainly hit the ground running. We’ll look into what happens tonight with the car and do a few bits and pieces for sure.
“But I dunno. I also have no reason to say we can’t fight for the front tomorrow.
“But it’s only been a week since Le Castellet, you can only change so much. Maybe the track does suit us more. But I’m sure we’ve made a step, but probably not that big a step.”
