Lando Norris secured second place on the grid for Saturday’s Sprint at Interlagos, but he wasn’t eager to talk about championship chances afterward.
The British driver is trying to catch up to Max Verstappen, who has a 47-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship, and he lost the top spot to his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in the last moments of the session.
When asked about the result and its significance for the championship, Norris cut off the reporter, saying, “I don’t care.
“I hate these questions so much. I’m just gonna race; I don’t care about where he qualifies.”
When the reporter tried again to discuss his result in relation to Verstappen, Norris replied, “For me, it’s just focused on my own job, and that’s it. It’s the same question every time.
“But it doesn’t matter. If he’s first or if he’s last, I’ll do the best I can.”
Lando Norris expressed surprise at how fast he and teammate Oscar Piastri were during qualifying, especially since they only had one practice session to adjust their McLaren MCL38 due to the Sprint format in Sao Paulo. Norris and Piastri ended up being a quarter of a second ahead of third-placed Charles Leclerc.
“Yeah, I think a big improvement compared to where we were earlier today,” he said.
“We were struggling a lot, so a little bit surprised that we were so quick today, but a pleasant one, of course.”
Norris acknowledged that he made several mistakes during his final run in SQ3, which caused him to give up on that lap and allowed Piastri to pass him.
“A good lap but I made so many mistakes in my final lap and just boxed but yeah, a good job as a team,” he said.
“Like I said, I wasn’t expecting it.”
