Fuel scare nearly cost Norris Q3 spot in French GP F1 qualifying

Lando Norris says his issue in Q2 during qualifying for the French Grand Prix was a lack of fuel in his McLaren Formula 1 car.

Connor McDonagh

19 Jun 2021

Lando Norris (GBR) McLaren MCL35M.
© xpbimages.com

Norris was forced to abandon his final run in Q2, leaving him seventh overall while the rest of the field attempted to improve their times.

Despite not setting a second lap, Norris progressed into Q3, ultimately qualifying eighth.

“It was just a couple of problems we had with the fuel going into the car properly, where we just didn’t have enough fuel,” Norris said. “So a slight issue. You sometimes need fuel to make it round! Not ideal, but it didn’t cost us, I did a good enough lap one in Q2 so I guess I can be satisfied that I did a good enough job and kind of saved us a little bit.

“It’s something to forget about for now, we don’t need to kick ourselves too much. We can look ahead to tomorrow and see what we can do better.”

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl confirmed the team would be investigating why Norris didn’t have enough fuel in his car.

“We had an issue with getting fuel in for his final run and that is why we had to abort the run in order to make sure that we got the car back,” Seidl explained. “It is something we are analyzing at the moment to make sure that that does not happen again.

“So luckily the first lap that he put in in Q2 was enough to progress to Q3, so did not affect the qualifying but that is something that we need to be on top of.

Teammate Daniel Ricciardo is set to start Sunday’s race from tenth on the grid.

While the Australian wasn’t happy with his grid slot, he felt it was a “smooth” weekend.

“The position, no [not happy] – the day I’m happy with a tenth is the day I should probably stop racing!” Ricciardo added. “But from a weekend, it’s been a good weekend. No big issues, no big complaints. I haven’t felt like we’ve been scratching our head, or we’ve been lost, I think it’s been smooth.

“I think ultimately the best way to say it is everyone is fast at the moment. The competition is tough and I think of course maybe there’s a tenth in the car I can find, but ultimately those few tenths now we’ve got to keep developing and finding the speed.”