Norris says “mystery” failure wasn’t caused by wall hit

Lando Norris says McLaren doesn’t yet know what caused the suspension failure which put him out of the Canadian Grand Prix.

But he is convinced the damage wasn’t caused by contact with a barrier at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. “No you can check all my laps,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans, “I never hit the wall.”

Norris parked his car with his right-rear wheel at an angle and fire coming from the suspension. “It started with the brakes going long or not working basically,” Norris explained. “And that’s all I know.

From then on obviously the thing happened over the line. I don’t even know what happened, I thought I had a puncture or something. I got close to the wall but I didn’t hit the wall, nothing happened. It’s a mystery at the moment because the guys can’t see anything in the data either.”

Before retiring Norris had an eventful scrap with his Team Redline simracing team mate Max Verstappen, though the Red Bull driver eventually managed to get ahead.

“It was fun,” said Norris. “I managed to hold him off for a few laps even though he was considerably quicker. He got me on the first lap, I managed to get him back.

“Max is obviously a tough guy to keep behind so I did what I could, it was some close racing and some fun. I haven’t had a lot of racing this season, wheel-to-wheel and having proper fun, so this was the first bit of it. It was nice it just didn’t last very long.”

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