Lando Norris calls out Ferrari pace claim made by Red Bull in Japan

Losing out to the Ferraris in Japan, Lando Norris says while Ferrari’s race pace wasn’t as epic as Red Bull had predicted, his P3 on the grid gave McLaren “false hope” for a better result.

Norris lined up third on the grid at Suzuka having out-paced Carlos Sainz by almost two-tenths while a disappointing qualifying session for the other Ferrari left Charles Leclerc down in eighth place.

Ferrari race pace wasn’t ‘as good’ as Red Bull predicted

Red Bull, though, warned everyone to watch out for Ferrari as they believed the Scuderia had the best race pace after the practice sessions.

But while they were ahead of McLaren in long run pace, Sainz racing his way to third place with Leclerc ahead of Norris in fourth, the Briton says it was by no means the epic tale Red Bull had forecast.

“It was as expected to be honest with you,” the 24-year-old said of his Grand Prix in Japan. “I don’t think the Ferrari race pace was anything incredible. I don’t think it’s as good as what Red Bull thought it was going to be as they said.”

It was, though, better than McLaren’s leaving Norris to fight what he called a “losing battle”.

“It’s always hard in the beginning when you’re trying to push to keep up with a quicker car or push to stay ahead of the Ferraris, which were quicker,” he said.

“You hurt the tyres more and it’s kind of like a bit of a spiral. We’re fighting a losing battle. Still not a bad day.

“I think where we are, we expected to be in the end, which is behind Ferrari. It’s where we’ve been all year so it should be no different, and it was no different.

“I think [in qualifying], we just excelled. I put in some very strong laps, and maybe made us look a bit too good. It was a bit more back to reality.”

PlanetF1.com recommends

Follow PlanetF1.com’s WhatsApp channel for all the F1 breaking news!

Japan GP data uncovered: McLaren’s crucial error and Fernando Alonso’s smart tactics

Lando Norris admits ‘false hope’ after qualifying third

Reality was Ferrari once again on the podium with Red Bull, and Norris 30 seconds down the road from race winner Max Verstappen.

He, though, says that’s not a bad showing despite qualifying’s “false hope”.

“I was only 10 seconds behind Carlos,” he said. “It felt a lot worse out there, only 10 seconds behind, I think is a good job by us.

“And it was 30 [seconds] then to the win, which for as bad as it felt, it isn’t as bad as it looks from my eyes.

“Tricky for everyone, the tyre degradation is huge, we hoped for more and maybe that was a bit of a false hope. That’s why it feels a bit tougher.

“If we started further back I think we would have been happy with P5.”

Lando Norris wants a review of McLaren’s strategy

Crossing the line in fifth place, three seconds behind Leclerc, Norris was pressed on whether he could’ve beaten the Ferrari driver had McLaren adopted a different strategy.

The Briton voiced his surprise during the Grand Prix when he was called to box as he chased down Leclerc, saying “why so early?”.

He revealed McLaren wanted to cover off George Russell rather than focus on Leclerc.

He replied: “I don’t know. Honestly, I got told to box so I listened to what I got told to do. But something to review with the team.

“I think we did what was best at the time. But it’s always hard to know. Maybe we didn’t expect Charles to box. I’m not sure. He was close enough that you would kind of want to say, yeah, if we did something different, maybe we had a better chance.

“I think we covered George, which I feel like we maybe didn’t need to do to be honest with you. And because we tried to cover George we box at the same time as Charles. I for sure could have gone another five, six laps, created a tyre delta, ad then come back through like Carlos Sainz for instance.

“So just an opinion, but it’s something we’ll discuss and review.”

Read next: How Christian Horner’s money ended in Bernie Ecclestone’s pocket over Sergio Perez bet