Lando Norris has explained his pole position fumble at the Qatar Grand Prix as team-mate Oscar Piastri stole P1.
After the first Q3 runs, Norris held a 0.035s advantage over Piastri, but at Turn 2 on his second lap, he made a mistake and aborted - opening the door for Piastri to grab pole.
The Sprint race winner did that by 0.108s to place Norris on the dirty side of the grid in the race. The Briton can be crowned world champion if he out-scores Piastri by four points, and Max Verstappen, in third, by one. If Norris wins, he will be the champion.
However, overtaking has proven difficult in the Sprint, with the race also set to feature 25-lap mandatory stint lengths.
Reflecting on his error, Norris explained what went wrong.
"Yeah, I don't know," Norris began to explain.
"I just got a bit of understeer and was going to go off, so I had to abort, which is a shame, but it is the way it is.
"Oscar did a good lap, and drove very well and has been driving well all weekend, so yeah, there is nothing to complain about. I just didn't do the lap.
"In the first couple of laps, there are always opportunities for everyone, but after that, I think it is probably going to be pretty straightforward for everyone too.
"We'll review some things and see what I can do better [than in the Sprint], but otherwise, we are in a good position.
"The car has been feeling good. I was much happier today than yesterday, but there is progress, but it is a long race."
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