McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are confident they can take the fight to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in Saturday’s Formula Austrian Grand Prix Sprint race after qualifying second and third behind the Sprint pole-sitting Dutchman.
Verstappen out-qualified Norris by 0.098s during Friday’s Sprint qualifying session, with Piastri three-tenths adrift in the second McLaren challenger.
Piastri struggled in Barcelona, citing an “unnatural” feeling with his MCL38, but his performance on Friday showed a marked improvement.
However, being two-tenths back from his team-mate shows room for growth and the Australian rued errors on his final run in SQ3.
“The position is quite good obviously, but the last lap there were a couple of corners I could have tidied up,” said Piastri.
“No I think it’s nice to at least know where the time is.
“Obviously a bit of a rough one last weekend so I feel like we’re back on the pace.”
Asked if he can fight forward on Saturday morning, Piastri said, “The gap to Max is not massive and I know there was a couple of big mistakes on that lap. I think we’re definitely in the mix.”
Norris meanwhile was under a tenth of a second within Verstappen’s pole time and the Briton has been the reigning champion’s closest match ever since claiming his maiden Formula 1 Grand Prix win at Miami in May.
McLaren’s leading light was unable to pip Verstappen to the top sport on Friday like he did in Barcelona’s qualifying session, but was still feeling positive after getting out of the car.
“I think reasonably good to be honest,” he said.
“I never got quite comfortable until my final lap so I’m happy with that.
“Close as it has been all year so no difference but yeah it must have been a nice lap by Max.”
Verstappen and Norris last shared the front row as recently as the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona last weekend and are now set to do so again on Saturday morning.
Like Piastri, Norris was asked after Sprint qualifying if he can take the fight to Verstappen during Saturday morning’s Sprint race the McLaren driver replied: ” From what we see at the minute yes, but otherwise I’m not sure.”
Lights out for the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix Sprint commences at 12:00 local time – let battle commence.
