Lando Norris gave a blunt assessment of his performance after a penalty left him eighth on the grid for this weekend’s race.
“The car was the best it’s felt, but I just did a crap job,” said the reigning world champion.Norris appeared to be one of few drivers who managed to improve their time at the end of the session. However he exceeded track limits in turn 15 and the stewards deleted his time, dropping him two places from sixth.
He said faces a difficult task to make up ground in the race. “The pace is not bad,” he said. “It’s better than what it looks, but it’s going to be hard from P8, I guess.”
His team mate Oscar Piastri said it is difficult to tap the potential of McLaren’s car. The team enjoyed a strong run of form in the middle of the season but have struggled in recent races.
Piastri qualified seventh for this weekend’s race over three-quarters of a second behind pole-winner Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
“It’s been tough all weekend,” said Piastri after qualifying. “There’s just not been any pace so it’s a bit of a bit of head-scratcher.
“I think the car has the potential to be quick but it’s just incredibly difficult to drive. It’s been a challenge from the first lap yesterday until now so it’s not a massive surprise to end up where we are.”
The team introduced a few aerodynamic changes to its car for this weekend’s race. But Piastri said the team had not expected to make significant gains.
“We’ve tried a lot of stuff but nothing’s really seemed to be the fix,” he said. “We didn’t really expect any of the changes we made to make a massive difference but it’s just been incredibly difficult to get lap time out of the car.
“It’s just one of those weekends at the moment.”
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