Norris felt an Imola front-row start was possible

Lando Norris said he felt he had “a little chance” at putting himself on the front row for sprint qualifying at Imola after taking P3.

The McLaren driver drove well throughout an often-interrupted qualifying session on Friday, with five red flags and ever-changing conditions making it tough going for the drivers throughout.

Norris himself ran into the barriers in the closing stages of Q3, prompting the final red flag that ultimately ended up setting the grid for Saturday’s sprint.

McLaren have fallen well back in the pecking order in the field so far this season, with the MCL36 proving a difficult car for the drivers to handle in the early rounds.

This result represents a marked improvement for the Woking team, but the 22-year-old driver felt a little bit more could have been possible had he put all his energy into producing one lap instead of going for a second attempt.

The average age of the top three in #ImolaGP qualifying?

23 years, 310 days.

The future of #F1 is looking bright pic.twitter.com/8U90turkUY

— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) April 22, 2022

“I would have liked to have put that last lap in because we didn’t do a lap where we were full power, full battery,” Norris told Sky Sports F1 after the session.

“The lap I did at the beginning of Q3 was like a two consecutive, and when you do two consecutive [laps] you have to kind of split the battery 50 per cent, 50 per cent.

“If I had managed to get a lap at the end which was 100 per cent battery, there was a good three, four tenths left in it.

“I’m sure Charles [Leclerc] maybe would have improved as well, but if he made a mistake and didn’t do that I think I could have got him.

“So there’s maybe that little chance to do even better and to score a second place today, but it