The Briton said he went into the final session that set the grid for the Qatar Grand Prix feeling “convinced I would have been on pole”.
From there, the McLaren driver’s chances of winning the race – the result he needs to be sure of becoming world champion on Sunday – would have been high.
Instead, Norris was beaten into second place by his team-mate Oscar Piastri. If the Australian wins the race – as he did the sprint before grand prix qualifying on Saturday – the title battle goes to the final race in Abu Dhabi next weekend.
There is also Max Verstappen to take into account, a driver who instils such fear in his rivals that McLaren’s chief executive officer, Zak Brown, described the Dutchman as like the villain in a horror movie.
The Red Bull driver starts third, the three title protagonists all together at the front of the grid. The race, which begins at 16:00 GMT and is live on BBC Sounds and the BBC Sport website, is indeed well set up.
Norris heads into the penultimate grand prix of the season on the fast and demanding Lusail circuit outside Doha with a 22-point lead over Piastri, and 25 over Verstappen.
The potential scenarios are many, but the basic maths is simple – if Norris wins, he becomes champion; if Piastri or Verstappen do, the race goes on.
Which is why starting second, on the dirty side of the track, from which he is likely to make a less-than-good start than Piastri and Verstappen, is not precisely what Norris needed.
How does Norris rate his title chances?
Norris, who qualified and finished third in the sprint, said: “Yesterday, I didn’t really feel like I had the pace for pole. Today, I felt much more comfortable and confident that I would have been on the pole. But I’m not now. I’m pretty disappointed with myself because of that.”
Norris was on provisional pole after the first runs in the final session of qualifying, having edged Piastri by just 0.035 seconds.
Through Turn One on their final runs, Norris believed he had already gained 0.1 seconds on his previous best and was feeling good. But the lap went awry at the next corner.
The front of the car lost grip, and kept losing grip, and Norris had to abort to prevent going off the track.
That opened the door for Piastri, who ran through it with gusto to take pole by 0.108 seconds.
“Turn Two, I’m not sure,” Norris said. “I don’t know if the wind changed a touch or something. I just pushed into a small understeer, and that cost me, basically.
“I had to abort. I was going to go off the track. The understeer got worse as I went through the corner. And I damaged a floor yesterday. I didn’t want to damage another one today.
“I was confident today that I could have been on pole, but I’m not. That, of course, makes it feel worse.
“But Oscar did a good job, so I can’t take anything away from the fact that he’s driven well all weekend.
“I paid the price for my mistakes. It’s still not a bad day. I’m still second. I still felt a lot happier with the car, so I’m definitely feeling better about things. I missed my opportunity to make my life a lot easier (for the race).”
