Under these circumstances, Norris was content to have made the top 10 in Q2 for the Spanish GP before a track limits penalty cost him the time that would have placed him eighth in the session, leaving him stranded. in 11th place.
Norris was then able to view FIA footage of his expensive race at Turn 12 and accepted the decision given the current concentration of the new race directors on the white line being the limit of the track.
But Norris admitted he felt worse than he had in a while.
“I haven’t been great all weekend, to be honest with you,” he said. “It’s not COVID. I’m just in pain with my throat and my eyes and I can see, which doesn’t help.
“I have a lot, my sleep and everything and my energy levels are probably the worst I’ve had in a long time.
“It’s definitely not my peak this weekend. I was so happy to even be in Q3 and do the lap I did, with the way this weekend went so far. here. I was quite surprised. It makes me feel good.”
Norris conceded that FIA videos, which he viewed when he was called in for another dangerous release incident involving Lance Stroll, indicated he had exceeded track limits.
“I mean it was as simple as it really looked,” he said. “I think the only thing was from the edges, it looked like I was on the track, but from the FIA speedboats, I was clearly off the track. It’s as simple as that.
“I think what makes it so tricky in this corner is that you have the gravel runoff and you have about 10cm of track that you can’t use before the gravel.
“And in some cases it’s a lot easier to say gravel is the limit, and everybody pushes to the gravel.
“And if you leave, there’s already a penalty. But I don’t know, it’s been a rule all season, the white line is the limit, so I didn’t stick to it.”
Norris’ progress with the latest McLaren update package was not helped by the fact that he lost most of Friday’s FP2 session after damaging the car on a curb trip , forcing the team to build the spare chassis for Saturday.
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL36
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Although he missed out on long-term preparation for the race, he insisted his qualifying session was not compromised by the lost mileage.
“I don’t want to use it as an excuse for anything,” he said when asked by Autosport about the impact of the missed session.
“I think the one thing that will hurt me the most is just for the longer races tomorrow, just to have more fuel, especially when it’s this temperature and so on, every little learning that you can do to help save tires and manage them and keep temperatures low, all those things that are not easy to learn on the fly while racing.
“Of course, I already have a good idea of what to do. But nothing beats doing the laps for real.
“I wouldn’t say it hurt anything in qualifying, more for tomorrow maybe just a few small steps behind but just half way through the race hopefully I can’t catch up.”
With Norris out of Q3, team-mate Daniel Ricciardo secured a solid ninth place, putting his season qualifying score at 5:1.
“I think we’re still learning the new stuff,” said the Australian. “With updates and new things, it’s not always as simple as screwing them in and sending the car in.
“I think once you put them on, you also have to figure out how to balance the car well with that. So I think we always try to find the best balance with the new elements.
“So I’m not sure yet if we’ve really maxed out their real performance, but we’re still going through a learning phase, and I think going into Q3 was solid. But obviously we’re still trying to chase some time at the round.”
