How the mighty have fallen? Norris reveals why McLaren risked Q1 exit
Lando Norris has revealed that the situation at McLaren is so dire that he was fighting the car all along, and as such an early Q1 eliminationn wasn't necessarily off the table.
You try and do the same as the lap before because it was good, but you have just different problems every single lap.- Lando Norris on McLaren's issues in COTA
McLaren's efforts in the end were good enough only for P2 for Norris and P6 for teammate and championship leader Oscar Piastri.
When asked regarding his day, the runner up in the Drivers' Standings told F1TV: "It's not been a great day otherwise. And we were struggling with the car. I think that was just pretty evident from the outside.
"Q1 we were pretty slow, not a mile away from getting knocked out. And Q2 and Q3 we were just fighting the car a lot. It was just difficult."
Norris still doesn't have an answer for the issues stemming from the once dominant MCL39, but he admits new ones arose every lap, an alarming claim.
He continued: "I don't know why. It's quite a bit more tricky than it was yesterday. I see some conditions change, the wind changed a little bit, things like that.
"But yeah, it was tough. And I don't have a delta on my dash, so I felt my first two sectors were a bit meh on the final lap.
"I mean, you try and do the same as the lap before because it was good, but you have just different problems every single lap, which is part of our issue.
"I didn't know if I was up, down, what. So I knew I had to just hit and hope for the last couple corners and try put it together and I made, I think, some good improvements to my previous.
"I'm happy to be p2 because it quite easily could have been a lot worse today. It felt worse so I'll definitely take it for that reason," Norris concluded.
The title hangs in the balance
Prior to the U.S GP the gap Piastri and Norris had in the championship over Max Verstappen was of 63 and 44 points respectively.
Nevertheless after the Lap 1 Turn 1 melee in the Sprint which caused both McLaren's to DNF, the gaps now stand at 55 and 36 points, which today can suffer another hefty blow should the Red Bull driver win the race.
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