Norris gives blunt reply after missed opportunity in Baku qualifying

When asked if his Q3 result was a missed opportunity, Norris replied: “No, because I still did everything I could. If I won every race, I could be world champion by now, but I didn’t. I just said the tricky conditions.

“I went out first and it was just the wrong decision to make in the end. If everyone else got a yellow behind because someone else went off behind me, you wouldn’t be asking me this question.”

He then added: “Sometimes it goes your way around here, sometimes it doesn’t. We thought we took a better option.”

According to Norris, the mistake was going out first on the final run: “I think it would have been if it wasn’t spitting—it just started to spit again before the final run. And then going out first is just the incorrect thing, so something we’ll learn from.

“The opportunities are every single weekend to be on pole. I try and do that every weekend. And today I struggled more because of not making the best decision, but that’s a hindsight thing, not an incorrect one at the time.”

When asked what he can hope for in tomorrow’s race, Norris added: “I think we’re running the pace to beat Max. I think he’s just going to be fast. He's been quick all weekend. They could easily win in Monza, they could easily win again here this weekend. I’m not sure about the win, but we’re trying to get on the podium.

“There’s a good number of cars ahead that are probably a little out of position, but Carlos’ lap was still pretty good. He’s up there. It’s not an easy track to overtake on.”

And about Piastri: “He’s also right behind me. I haven’t done any high-fuel running, I haven’t done many laps this weekend in general. I’ve got a lot of questions I still need to answer, a lot of work to do tonight to look into Oscar’s long-run data and see how the car is handling, what the issues are going to be. I think I’ve got a long night ahead of me, but the pace is always there or thereabouts.”

With his teammate’s incident forcing him to start ninth tomorrow, Norris had a great opportunity to score big points in the race and potentially strengthen his title fight by securing pole or a front-row start.

However, Norris also made a small mistake on his decisive lap, going out before everyone else, and ultimately finished seventh—making Piastri’s error seem less costly by comparison.

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