Norris: “I feel as confident as I have ever been” after strong start to F1 2021
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Norris made an impressive start from seventh on the grid at Portimao, overtaking Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in the early stages of the race.The young Brit had managed to get past Sergio Perez after the Safety Car but was forced to give the place back having completed the move outside of track limits.The 21-year-old showed impressive pace and tyre management to preserve his medium tyres to ultimately finish fifth in the Portuguese Grand Prix, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.Reflecting on the race, Norris said: “It was a very good race for me today. A tough one. Charles was pushing me a lot the whole of the second stint. And it was quite a long second stint, so it was difficult.“Difficult with the wind and the conditions and so on. But the car was good, I felt good. I think we did a good job as a team, and fifth was the best we could do today. The others are too far ahead. So I am happy.”Norris’ impressive start to the season means he sits third in the drivers’ championship, ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas.Related ArticlesaccImages.createImage(); Five winners and five losers from F1’s Portuguese Grand Prix accImages.createImage(); Five winners and five losers from F1’s Portuguese Grand Prix When asked about his current form, Norris revealed he hasn’t been this confident in his own ability since joining F1 in 2019.“I feel not overly confident, I feel as confident as I have ever been,” Norris explained. “It is important not only on race day but in qualifying and throughout the whole weekend and the whole year, so I feel good, I feel like we are doing a good job as a team, we are talking about the things we need to be, we are preparing for the things we need to be preparing for.“We are doing a good job and doing what needs to be done. And the hard work is paying off. More weekends like this would be lovely, but they are still very difficult even though they might sometimes look easy from the outside. We will do our best. But a good amount of points so I am happy.”Related ArticlesaccImages.createImage(); ‘Gladiator’ Alonso channels “anger” into impressive recovery in F1 Portuguese GPaccImages.createImage(); ‘Gladiator’ Alonso channels “anger” into impressive recovery in F1 Portuguese GPDaniel Ricciardo recovered from 16th on the grid to finish tenth to pick up the final championship point.While he wasn’t totally satisfied with the end result, the Australian was happy to have bounced back after a disappointing qualifying.“Better than my Saturday,” Ricciardo added. “If it was worse than my Saturday then I would not be wanting to talk to anybody right now. So it was better. The race was fun actually. At the start, I wanted to get five cars on lap one. I think I got three, so it was okay.”4“It was just fun out there. Some good battles. But with the hard they just did not have as much pace as the mediums, unfortunately, I did not have the pace of Fernando. I don’t think many people did actually. His hard stint was really impressive at the end of the race, how quick he was able to go, so it would’ve been nice to get a top eight but nonetheless some points, so feeling better than yesterday.”
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