Norris and Piastri showed strong one-lap pace amid an extremely tight qualifying battle behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
But both drivers struggled to get their best laps together in Q3, which shuffled them down to seventh and eighth respectively. With such slim margins as the 2024 season gets under way, any such qualifying mistakes are proving extra costly.
"It was tricky," Norris replied when asked by Autosport about his compromised Q3 lap, which was still only 0.435s behind polesitter Verstappen and just two tenths off second-placed Charles Leclerc.
"Maybe the wind changed that little bit. In Q3 when you're pushing that little bit more and things change the tiniest bit it can make a big difference, which it did for me.
"A lot of potential and the car was feeling great all through qualifying, so I was very happy. I was putting in some good laps, my worst one was my final one which is normally not how you want it to go. But the potential was there.
"If I just put my reasonable lap in and just didn't make a mistake, but it wasn't an insane Iap, I still believe that we probably should have been second or third. For us to have that is pretty positive."
Source: Autosport