Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – Qualifying Report

Jeddah Corniche Circuit, Friday, 8 March

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, as well as Team Principal Andrea Stella, after qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

“P5. I think that was probably the most we could have got out of it, but it was a decent session and the car felt pretty good. All-in-all, we can be pretty happy with that. We definitely still have some things to improve with the car but I think that was a pretty solid session, minus a little tap of the wall in Q1. Going into tomorrow, I think we’re in a good position and hopefully we can move forward. Congratulations to Ollie Bearman on his efforts today as well, it was impressive to see him in Q2 having only hopped in the car this morning.”

“A good day. I don’t think we could have asked for much more as a team, so I’m happy. I think we got the most out of the car. We went 4-2-1 with the tyres, which put us at a disadvantage in qualifying with one fewer set of tyres. That made our life a little bit trickier today, but we knew that, we knew what to expect, and we hope it will pay us back tomorrow. I’m very happy and I think we maximised today. Well done to Ollie Bearman, that's a really impressive result given he didn't know he'd be driving an F1 car today, he definitely seems to like this circuit. Best wishes to Carlos too, hopefully he'll have a speedy recovery.” 

“A good result for the team today in qualifying puts us in a strong position to score good points tomorrow. Lando and Oscar made constant improvements today, session-by-session, and put together competitive laps in a field that was tight all the way through qualifying.

“With Lando, we decided to bias the tyre strategy slightly more towards the race, so it’s good that he’s up there in qualifying. With Oscar, we wanted to maximise qualifying potential and he did a very good job in achieving this result. We’re looking forward to a productive race.”