Lando Norris made a concerning admission over McLaren’s hopes to succeed at the Canadian Grand Prix after languishing down in seventh in qualifying on Saturday.
The McLaren star was left to rue several mistakes, leaving him behind teammate Oscar Piastri in third, Max Verstappen in second and George Russell, who claimed pole with a stunning lap before aiming a jab at the Red Bull driver.
And Norris and the team appeared to admit this weekend could dent their title hopes behind the faster Red Bull and Mercedes.
“Not ideal,” Norris said after qualifying. “Too many mistakes, yeah. I hit the wall in the last lap. I had good confidence, the car felt good today, I just made too many mistakes.
“I don’t feel any difference [with the new front suspension], it’s something for us to go quicker.
“It’s not been as good as Max, we’ve clearly not had our advantage around our track, you need a very good ride. I think our pace is good enough, just too far back again.”
And Team Principal Andrea Stella added to the gloom around the papaya, conceding: “This weekend could be one of damage limitation.”
“We needed to make a lot of changes, for stability in particular. We were competitive. With Oscar we maximised what we had.
“Verstappen and Russell are fast, but with Lando, quick in Q1 and Q2, but the new tyres in Q3, we lost some of the rhythm and we have some work to do tomorrow.
“I need to look at the data carefully, after the first set of tyres that looked like the trend, the entire corner was out of shape by braking too late. It’s something we’re working on. We’ll review it for the next races. The picture changes for the race, for race pace, we should be more comfortable.”
While former world champion Nico Rosberg admitted concern over Norris’ ability to handle the heat of the title battle against Verstappen and wheel-to-wheel combat on the track.
“He [Norris] is more careful,” said the German. “He has been on the losing end in these wheel-to-wheel battles with Verstappen, he’s not as strong or as forceful as George in the media, I quite like what George is doing.”
