Circuit de Monaco, Saturday 22 May

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, and Team Principal Andreas Seidl after Qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.

LANDO NORRIS, #4

	FP3	1m11.988s (+0.694s)	20 laps	6th
	Q1	1m11.321s (Softs)		4th
	Q2	1m11.031s (Softs)		6th
	Q3	1m10.620s (Softs)		5th

"Really good qualifying – I’m very pleased to be P5. We were only two tenths off pole and just half a tenth off P2 – which isn't a lot – so it was really close. But I feel like I did a good lap and I don’t think there was anything more in it. I'm really happy – although knowing that by doing something different you could've maybe gained that half a tenth and quite a few positions is tough, but I’m still pleased with how we did. It was a good day. It’s been a good weekend for us, and we extracted everything we could out of the car. On my final Q3 lap especially, we took quite a few risks, but it all paid off and it was definitely one of the best laps I've done in my career. We did a good job today as a team and we just need to try to finish it off tomorrow."

DANIEL RICCIARDO, #3

	FP3	1m12.959s (+1.665s)	25 laps	13th
	Q1	1m11.747s (Softs)		11th
	Q2	1m11.598s (Softs)		12th
	Q3	-

“It’s more confusing than frustrating at the moment, that’s the emotion I'm feeling. There were some laps that, for sure, were a bit messy which explained maybe a couple of tenths. Since Thursday we’ve made some progress and this was continuing throughout qualifying with each run. I had to stop at the scales towards the end of Q2, so we didn’t have the tyres as we wanted which put us on the back foot a little bit for the final run.

“Usually, you can feel when you’re a bit off the pace, but I haven’t had that, and I don’t feel like I've forgotten how to drive this track. I’m still getting up to speed with the driving style needed to get the maximum out of this car, and maybe that’s amplified here in Monaco. But, we know what we need to work on and we’ll keep pushing for the race tomorrow.”

ANDREAS SEIDL, Team Principal

“A mixed qualifying result for us today. Lando continued to show strong pace and finished P5, a few milliseconds from P2, which is encouraging to see. Daniel, after a difficult start here on Thursday, improved continuously through the sessions today. He was put on the back foot for his final run in Q2 due to having to stop at the weighbridge, missing the right tyre preparation. Ending qualifying in P12 still puts us in a position with Daniel to fight for good points.  

“Well done to the entire team for another very well-executed qualifying session. This is an iconic track, and we have an iconic livery to celebrate that, the field seems quite mixed up compared to what we usually see, and everything is set up perfectly for an exciting race tomorrow.”

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