Lando Norris wants to secure the constructors’ title with a victory for McLaren and says he is ready to do battle with former teammate Carlos Sainz at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Sainz is set to start his final race for Ferrari before being replaced by Lewis Hamilton, and is trying to help them surpass McLaren by 21 points to win the constructors’ championship. Norris will start from pole ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri after McLaren locked out the front row, and the British driver says he expects a fiery Sainz on Sunday but will not back down in the fight for victory.

“We have to beat Ferrari,” Norris said. “That’s the goal, but we want to do it in style and we want to win.

“But we are here to win wherever possible, and tomorrow we will have a good chance, at least with one of our cars, and we will give everything we have, knowing deep down we are thinking about what we we really need to do to achieve our big goals.

“I feel like Zak is probably more nervous about us being first and second than if we weren’t, so… That gives us a good idea that the car is great, for sure. I think we both drove well this weekend and we knew the pressure was on from us. So we both performed well. We both got everything out of the car.

“But it’s a long race and a lot of things can happen. So we are certainly not going to anticipate. We know we have a small gap in terms of positions. We are in a much luckier position than Ferrari. will fight for his last race with Ferrari. You know, he’s going to want to prove his point. And I’m happy to fight if that’s the case.

It was Max Verstappen who was on provisional pole position after the first Q3 practice and Norris admits McLaren faced a tougher test than he expected once qualifying began.

“Honestly, Quali was a little difficult. We probably expected to be a little bit better than we were,” he said. “So far the weekend has been pretty easy on our side. It seems like everyone made up a lot of ground in qualifying, and we had to start pushing a lot more.

“It was a good ride. It wasn’t the cleanest, but sometimes when you’re pretty close to the edge and it’s just a little messy, sometimes it’s actually a pretty nice place. So I got a few shots, and I got a big shot in 9, high speed. I just made a mistake. It hurt a little, but otherwise it was a good ride.

“I put the rest together pretty well. It’s just not an easy circuit to do. We had a bit to gain in qualifying, as Max looked a bit faster than us for most of it. So I knew I had to take something out.