Norris: It was a good lap that's for sure!

As editor Jad Mallak headlined his Qualifying report: "Norris Blows them away", and indeed he did on a bright sunny afternoon at Red Bull Ring. Despite sitting out FP1 for young Alex Dunne to strut his stuff, Norris has looked on it all weekend, more than ever in Q3, where he played a stonker, with a first effort that had everyone chasing and making mistakes.

Apart from being one of his best ever Qualy laps, it is also the most important oof his career thus far, He needs to make amends for his zero points score after self-destructing in Canada. He needs to win this one, or at least finish ahead of Piastri, no matter what happens, to keep his title chase alive.

After securing his 12th career P1 start in Formula 1, Norris said in the Red Bull Ring parc ferme: "My Q3 run one was good but I knew there were a few places where, if I just got it right, I could still get quite a bit more time and I did exactly that.

"I did what I planned to do and when I plan to do something and it goes right, it normally goes very, very well. So very happy. A good day and it has been a good weekend for me so far, so hopefully we can keep it up. "It's a long season and I still savour this moment, especially as some of my tougher moments have been in qualy.

"So to put in the lap like today, to put in the performance like I had, was pleasing for myself. I'm excited. I want to prove to myself over and over again and hopefully this is the beginning of it," added Norris.

In the other McLaren, Oscar Piastri's body language said it all. He was disappointed with his run and was a victim of Pierre Gasly spinning his Alpine late in the session. A brief yellow flag moment was enough to affect him more than most.

Piastri explained: "It was the fact I didn't get to start it [his final lap], that was the problem I had. Gasly spun at the last corner so I didn't even open my second lap."

But even had he got it all right when it mattered, he probably did not have a P1 lap in him, which Piastri acknowledged: "Lando has been very quick all weekend and it would have been a tough challenge, but I think we easily had enough pace in the car this weekend to be on the front row.

"So always a shame when you don't even get the chance but we can still have a good race from there. It's sometimes just not your day," lamented Paistri, but Qualy brings no points, race day does.

"Our pace this weekend has looked very strong. The Ferrari pace looked good as well, which was a bit of a surprise, but we still have some opportunities. I'm not planning on finishing third, that's for sure," added Piastri, who leads the 2025 F1 standings over Norris by 22 points ahead oif Round 11 on Sunday in Spielberg.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella summed up the session: "Even in Canada, after reviewing the weekend with Lando and his engineers, we always said the speed was there. When he had the little contact with the wall in qualifying, he was on track for a pole position."

Stella continued recalling the weekend in Montreal: "And in the race, he was one of the fastest, if not the fastest car, in the race. The speed was always there. We needed to polish the execution. We made little adjustments here and there.

"Not only he scored a pole position, but it’s a dominant pole position, a pretty remarkable lap time. It’s a bit of a shame that we couldn’t see Oscar contending the pole position because of the yellow flag that prevented him having a final attempt.

"We have a very strong point at McLaren that we are very prepared from a cultural, attitudinal point of view, to use every opportunity to become stronger and even more united. This was the tone, the content of the conversations. I think this has been realised, you can see from what our drivers said.

"Let me praise the work of everyone at McLaren for the upgrades. This has made the car faster. We are very encouraged by the data that we saw. A lot of positives to take away, and we need to capitalise," concluded Stella.