Lando Norris accepted the blame for his elimination in the first round of qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver had only one opportunity to set a lap time during the session. His team told him to abandon his first run and he had to back out of his final effort when Fernando Alonso spun ahead of him, causing yellow flags to be shown.Norris admitted he made a mistake on his sole other chance to set a qualifying time. “I locked up, I went off on my one lap,” he said.
“We had one problem on the first run and then the yellow flag from Fernando on the final run. So, it was a shame. My one opportunity that I needed to put a lap in, I locked up and went off.”
The McLaren driver, who was second quickest after practice yesterday, is set to start tomorrow’s race from 18th on the grid. He said it will be “difficult to go backwards” from there and expects his team mate Oscar Piastri to make gains from his seventh place on the grid.
“The pace is good, Oscar’s doing a good job. I probably should have gone P1 if I put my lap in before, but there’s a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda’s from me at the minute, so it’s a shame. But points will be our target, so it’s all we can do.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said they are looking into the technical problem which forced them to cancel Norris’ first attempt to set a time.
“We had an issue on the first run, which we are reviewing,” he said. “This meant we couldn’t put a banker on the timing sheet on the medium tyre.
“From there our session was compromised by an imperfect lap from Lando when on soft tyres and then by the yellow flag on the final lap at an unfortunate time. This sequence of events prevented us from progressing to Q2.”
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2023 Mexican Grand Prix
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TrueGrit
29th October 2023, 8:42
Ah Oscar, loves to deal in what ifs and maybes but too busy making mistakes.
Mog
29th October 2023, 11:36
Is that the 3rd race in a row where Norris has claimed he coule be p1? From the outside it looks like Oscar is starting to pressure him into making these types of comments.
Yes (@come-on-kubica)
29th October 2023, 12:50
Noise underperforming in recent races. He’s got the pace but needs the consistency inqualifying. Needs to focus on getting there rather than imaginary poles.
Doggy
29th October 2023, 13:44
This is what a lot of people miss In their statement “…Max has it easy because of the car and of course he will win.. ”
but NO,
Lando bottled what it was a sure p5 at least; noow he is last.
And that has applied, more than once this season, to any driver In the grid.