Lando Norris still feels a chance to beat Ferrari at the US Grand Prix

It may have been the second best team in qualifying, but Lando Norris is still hoping to beat Ferrari on race day in Austin.

Saturday was somewhat disappointing at the Circuit of the Americas for Norris, who qualified eighth behind his teammate. Daniel Ricciardo And both Ferrari drivers.

The Italian national team looked stronger than McLaren All weekend so far they are the favorites to finish leading the midfield in the race.

Norris remains optimistic about the win, especially since Sainz will start soft play while he and Ricciardo will be average.

“The goal is to beat Ferrari,” he told Sky Sports after qualifying.

“That’s our goal. Be as high as possible. I think Red Bull and Mercedes are a little bit ahead but we still have a good car, we can still score some good points and we have a chance to beat Ferrari.

“It will be important in the beginning, on the first lap, to try to move forward … Carlos is also on the weak side, so we definitely have some chances to try to move forward tomorrow.”

The shootings in the Wild West are over. ? Embedded Tweet Qualified in P7 with Embedded Tweet in P8. Bring the race! ? pic.twitter.com/a94nkzvLyA

– McLaren (@McLarenF1) October 23, 2021

Neither Norris nor Ricciardo could get anywhere near the Ferrari captain led by Charles Leclerc in qualifying, with Monaco being more than twenty years faster than both.

The Briton feels he has the speed to challenge his opponents despite the weather and would have done so without the mistakes on the last lap.

“Ferrari was fast today, so it took almost a perfect lap before him. They were practically ahead for most of the qualifying.”

“So they have a good package and we got close. I made a couple of mistakes on the last lap, like Sector 1 and Sector 2, I think they were good, but only in the last two corners I pushed too much and overcooked.” [the tyres].

“I did the opposite of what I should have done. I paid more instead of driving, which suited her a bit more.

So maybe I lost a few tenths which is bad because I could have been longer than those two, maybe before Ferrari, I’m not sure how many times they actually did.

“But I think it was close enough that if I hadn’t made the mistake, I would have been ahead.”