Norris and Piastri divided over McLaren’s performance in ‘very tricky’ Sprint Qualifying in Singapore

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris were left with conflicting emotions after qualifying in the top five for the Sprint in Singapore – the former satisfied to extract the maximum while the latter insisted that he didn’t do “a good enough job”.

A hectic SQ3 saw Norris initially claim the top spot just ahead of Piastri and their competitors at Mercedes, but with Ferrari and Red Bull both opting to run at different times, their efforts then demoted the Briton to P5.

Piastri was able to improve on his second lap and move back in front of his team mate to take fourth place, which he believed was the best possible result for McLaren at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

“I think that was more or less what we could’ve done,” the Australian explained. “It’s very tricky on a Sprint weekend to get all the lap time out of the car here, but I felt like on the softs things came alive a lot more.

“I was struggling on the medium and then once we put the softs on, I felt pretty happy. Not a bad effort.”

Asked to elaborate on the most difficult part of the track, having previously mentioned problems at Turns 2 and 3, Piastri added: “I was struggling with a few things in the car through there. It was a little bit better now, but I think the general feeling of the car isn’t any different to what it normally is.

“You’ve got to really wring its neck to be quick. Once we added a bit more grip in with the softs, it was a bit better, but still a challenge.”

After the team worked to fix the straight-line speed issue that impacted Norris last time out at Sepang, the Briton recognised that they had taken a step forward, but was dissatisfied with his performance in Sprint Qualifying on a personal level.

Responding to the suggestion that the tough track conditions affected his two flying laps, he said: “No, I don’t think that’s the reason. I just don’t think I put together a very good lap – that was all. No excuse.”

“I think [I’m happy] from what I’ve seen so far. I don’t know everything just yet to be honest – the guys are still looking into it and it’s been a busy day. A lot of things seem good. We seem closer as a team. It’s just simply that I didn't do a good enough job.”