Norris had began from the entrance after an excellent exhibiting in Friday’s moist qualifying session, however it all went mistaken at Flip 1 of the dash race after he got here off worse in a side-by-side tussle with Lewis Hamilton.
Having misplaced floor away from the grid, he discovered himself on the filth on the surface of the lengthy right- hand first nook. And, after immediately dropping grip, he ran large and dropped down the order.
Whereas he was able to recover and finished sixth, Norris clearly felt he ought to have finished higher.
Talking over the workforce radio after the chequered flag, Norris stated: “Yeah, I f***** up Flip 1, my unhealthy. I simply fully misplaced the automotive, so apologies. Ought to have scored some extra factors than that.”
However McLaren boss Andrea Stella moved rapidly to say that fairly than the driving force apologising, it was the workforce that needs to be saying sorry for not giving him a automotive that was higher capable of struggle for wins.
“Actually he would not must apologise as a result of we’d like his apologies [for the car],” Stella informed Sky Sports activities F1.
“He is aware of that he may have finished higher, however we recognize the utmost effort and we work as a workforce. And likewise this simply provides a way of the type of individual he’s.
“He feels, I am positive, like ‘I’ve upset the workforce.’ [But] don’t be concerned, Lando, you have not upset the workforce. We have to offer you a greater automotive after which all issues will change into a lot simpler, fairly than at all times being on the restrict to carry on some essential outcomes.
“So it is extra as much as us, and the women and men at McLaren are working arduous to enhance the automotive.”
Whereas Norris would probably have had an opportunity to struggle Hamilton for the lead early on if he had had a greater first nook, he doubted that he would have finally been capable of stave off eventual winner Max Verstappen.
“Yeah, no likelihood,” he stated when requested if the win had been on the desk. “Possibly it may have been one or two positions larger. However that was it.
“I believe the Mercedes had superb tempo in the present day. George [Russell] was catching us fairly rapidly and Lewis had good tempo as properly. After which the Purple Bulls and even the Ferraris, actually.
“I used to be managing to outlive simply due to the DRS. If I did not have DRS, I used to be lengthy gone behind all of them. Our race tempo was fairly stunning in the present day, which we type of anticipated with simply how the monitor is, and simply our limitations we’ve on the automotive.”