“Overtaking is worse than everyone thinks” · RaceFans

Lando Norris says he has little chance of scoring significant points in tomorrow’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix after qualifying only 17th for the race.

The McLaren driver abandoned his final flying lap in Q1 due to a yellow flag, meaning he was unable to progress beyond the session. Although he made an error at turn 16, running onto the kerbs, he said the lap would have been sufficient to get him into Q2.

“The lap was easily good enough, just a yellow flag so I had to back off,” Norris told the official F1 website.

The yellow flag was caused by Esteban Ocon, who hit a barrier at turn four earlier in the session and was driving back slowly to the pits.

Norris will start from his lowest grid position since last year’s Mexican Grand Prix. His championship rival Max Verstappen qualified sixth.

Oscar Piastri qualified his McLaren on the front row of the grid. But despite McLaren’s pace, and Baku’s reputation for being a track where overtaking is straightforward, Norris expects it will be hard to make up places in the race.

“Following is pretty much impossible around here, and overtaking is, I think, a lot worse than what everyone thinks,” he said.

“I hope I’m wrong, of course, and I have plenty of chances, but I’m not expecting so. There’s a lot of cars behind who are very low downforce, which will be pretty much impossible to overtake.

“So I’m honestly not expecting a lot from 17th. We’ll put in a good plan tonight and we’ll do our best, of course. But I don’t know what’s going to happen, so we’re just going to wait and see.”

The DRS zone on the main straight has been extended by over 100 metres for this weekend’s race.

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