Norris: It was the type of lap you should be on pole with

Once again 22-year-old Norris was better than Daniel Ricciardo, a couple of tenths the difference between Q2 departure - as was the case for the Australian - while his McLaren teammate went on to take fifth on the Paul Ricard grid.

With his effort, remarkably Norris split the Mercedes duo on the timesheets, a quarter of a second shy of Hamilton in fourth and a tenth up on Russell who will line-up beside the McLaren on the third row.

Norris said afterwards: “It's been a very good day. Before qualifying, we were discussing whether we should even talk about Q3, because it was very far away from what we thought we could achieve.

“I’m happy; I mean my lap in Q3 felt like a really good lap, the type of lap you feel you should be on pole with! In other categories, if you do this lap, I feel like I’d be very happy with that, and if I’m not on pole then I’d be surprised but I was still like one-and-a-bit seconds away.

“But apart from that, the team have done a good job and I feel like I’ve done a good job extracting everything, so we are in the best position we could be for the race.”

The plan for his 72nd Grand Prix start today is: "We weren’t expecting Q3 today, so to be P5 today is a good step, and I’m hoping a similar scenario happens, where we are thinking we might have a tough race but hopefully it’s just a really easy one.

But I’m expecting a good race and a good battle with Fernando [Alonso, starting seventh] and maybe not the Mercedes, but I’ll try," added Naorris.

In the sister car Ricciardo was 11th in qualifying but will move to month on the grid as Carlos Sainz and Kevin Magnussen’s drop down to the back due to engine penalties.

He summed up his qualy: “It’s positive, yes, we will have a look back through the lap and see why I didn’t get what I wanted in some of these places, but I think generally it’s a step forward."

With a slew of upgrades to the MCL36, Ricciardo shed light on how they performed: “I think some corners its good; some corners not so good. I think in general there is an improvement.

"But it’s… some corners I still struggle, just trying to push and getting those few more tenths out of it, I still don’t feel like I get the reward or get the car coming back to me the way I feel.

“But there were some places, I feel like Turn 1, 2, you can feel the car is a bit better loaded and stuff. So, there is certainly some positives, but some corners where I still scratch my head, so still a bit to find," concluded Ricciardo.

At the halfway mark in the 2022 F1 World Championship, 11 down and 11 to go, so tight is the midfield - Best of the Rest - that McLaren and Alpine are tied on 18 points ahead of today's Round 12 in France.