Lando Norris after P4 in Barcelona qualifying: "That's the harsh reality"

Lando Norris will start the GP at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya from fourth on the grid, while his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri had to make do with seventh place in qualifying. And although he missed the time of third-placed world championship leader Kimi Antonelli by just three thousandths, he said after the time chase: "I think we've made a good step forward."

"We've got better, it's just that the others have done a bit better. You just have to compare the onboard recordings of the others with ours, then you can see the difference in the vehicle balance," added the 26-year-old. And he emphasised: "I'm very happy with today. Sure, the gap to third place is tiny, but Kimi is in a car that can be three tenths faster and I'm in one where you could maybe take half a tenth off. So I'm happy and as a team we should be happy."

Lando Norris expects a difficult race

Looking ahead to the race, the eleven-time GP winner analysed: "We are not as good as Mercedes at tyre degradation, they probably have that under control the best. I think we're doing well compared to the other teams in this respect, but Ferrari are also incredible when it comes to cornering speed. They are still ahead there. They've lost maybe two or three tenths on the straights and in terms of power, which they'll probably have to make up for to some extent."

"It certainly won't be easy to beat a car that is three tenths faster in the race. It will certainly be the case that you want to drive a little slower to save the tyres, and they can take three tenths off and still be faster. I will have to step on the gas to overtake them and the tyres will overheat," predicts the world champion. "We will obviously give it our all, but we also have to remain realistic about our options."

Norris knows: "We haven't had any races that have fallen off recently, we were fast in all the races, we won in Monaco last year. We're not at that level anymore, that's the harsh reality we have to accept. It's a good result that we're only three tenths off the lead after being six or seven tenths off the lead in the last race."

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