Norris 'very happy' despite missing out on pole

Lando Norris won the Miami sprint race on Saturday before the qualifying session

Miami Grand Prix

Venue: Miami International Autodrome Date: 4 May Race start: 21:00 BST on Sunday

Coverage: Live commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live from 20:00; live text updates on BBC Sport website and app

McLaren's Lando Norris said he was "very happy" after qualifying at the Miami Grand Prix, despite losing out on pole position to Max Verstappen.

Norris ended up 0.065 seconds from the Red Bull driver and, while his satisfaction was mixed with some frustration, it was based on his feeling that he has made progress with some of the problems with which he has been struggling this season.

The Briton has been open about the fact he finds his McLaren car does not 'talk to him' in the way he would like when being pushed to the absolute limit on a qualifying lap.

And while he again made a mistake that he felt cost him pole position, their communication has been better this weekend at the Hard Rock Stadium.

Norris, who won Saturday's sprint race, said that "Max did a Max lap once again and I can't fault him". So in the context of that, and his own weekend, second was not too bad.

"I'm very happy with the end result," Norris said. "Just a shame when you miss out on pole, so that's the only frustrating bit.

"But I've been trying different things, I've been doing different things with the team to try and work a bit more in this area and things have been taking a step forward. So I'm happy. Maybe not quite there yet, but happy with the progress."

His team-mate Oscar Piastri, too, felt he should have been in the fight for pole with Verstappen.

But the Australian, leading the championship by nine points after his third victory of the season in Saudi Arabia last time out, said he was fourth because of "poor execution".

Piastri added: "The gap has always been close, and our advantage has been a little more on Sundays, but our picture of where we stand is that if we make mistakes we are going to be beaten and that's been true through the year."

Team principal Andrea Stella says McLaren have now seen enough of a pattern to work out what has been happening to allow Verstappen to take three poles in six races.

"We have now enough statistics to confirm what was already our initial impression in Bahrain during the (pre-season) test," Stella said, "that the car was easier to exploit in terms of performance in race simulation runs, rather than on a single lap with qualifying trim and new tyres.

"We have seen that pretty much so far we haven't had any perfect lap.

"We are definitely trying to assess on a solid engineering basis our understanding so that we can make some adjustments that our drivers can test to see if we can give them a car that is just slightly more predictable and rich of information in terms of how the grip is when driving the car at the limit."

He added: "Just to make sure that my point is clear, it's a car that doesn't give you much 'cueing', which is the technical word we use, and this means that it's not easy for our drivers to repeat some big performances that we can see in individual laps."

Upgrades are coming to try to solve this, and Red Bull have their own in Miami, a new floor that is the first of a number of developments they hope will allow Verstappen to challenge the McLaren drivers more consistently in races.

"What we are trying to achieve of course is a better balance in the car," Verstappen said. "Now this track is not always the easiest to say that you have improved or nailed something because it's just a really weird layout I would say. So it takes a bit more time.

"But for sure it was not negative. And yeah, from here we can work and try to improve it further because from my feeling, of course, we're not there yet. We need quite a bit more to be really in a fight."

Norris beat team-mate Oscar Piastri to victory in the sprint race, narrowing the gap between them in the drivers' championship by one point

In McLaren's view, Red Bull have not been painting the most accurate picture of the competitive picture between the two teams.

"Red Bull, they are very good at making fast cars," Stella said. "They are very exceptionally good, I would say, at driving fast cars, and they are extremely good also in creating the narrative to their advantage.

"They exploit every possible opportunity to stay in the competition, and some of these opportunities sometimes is to create the narrative, like, 'oh, we are making miracles here, the others should win every single practice session and qualifying and race.'

"This is the narrative created by some of our competitors, which we read occasionally and then we change the page and we focus on ourselves."

The grid sets up an intriguing race. The title contenders are in reverse order, with an interloper between Norris and Piastri in the form of Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli.

And Norris scents an opportunity to nail his first victory since the opening race of the season in Australia back in March.

In qualifying, he made errors at the last corner on both his laps, each time costing about 0.2secs, so he knows the pace is in the car.

"Max has always been good in qualifying and as a team we have struggled a little more in qualifying, whether that's set-up or what, I'm not too sure," Norris said.

"We know the Red Bulls are running high downforce, which allows them especially with the DRS (in qualifying) to be a lot more competitive. But it's a long race and we know we have good pace in both conditions.

"I don't just expect competition from Max. Kimi's been quick all weekend and Oscar has been as well. So yeah, I just expect a tough race from all accounts."