Lando Norris was extremely frustrated after his tough 2022 Canadian Grand Prix, and only wanted to go home, after a cold bath and an ice cream that is.
Norris’ Formula 1 weekend in Montreal was one to forget for the young Briton, as he qualified 14th after hitting car trouble in Q2, and then finished the race on Sunday down in 15th, on a day when his MCL36 was not up to the job, something McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl apologized for.
“I think just everything went wrong today,” Norris told the reporters after the race in Canada. “There’s just not many positives at all.
“Just the car’s not good enough,” he went on. “You know, at times it’s strong. I thought…I was a little bit more optimistic after Friday and we could achieve more today[Sunday].
“But when I was stuck behind the Williams, they’re so fast, probably the quickest in the straights and we’re probably the slowest in the straights, and then it’s literally impossible to overtake so we can’t do anything,” Norris revealed.
McLaren showed early promise in the first pre-season test in Barcelona this year, but their form fluctuated after that, and Norris admits that the real picture about the team’s form is somehow clouded.
“I mean, I think it’s quite simple,” he began. “It’s just not, it’s not anywhere where we want it. And a day like today is probably a good thing, that it shows we’re just a long way off. And we have to keep working very hard to keep trying a lot of different things.
McLaren’s pace not genuine
“Because, maybe at times things look great. But it’s never really like genuine pace, you know, we’re a little bit there on luck sometimes. And a day like today when it’s just more simple and you don’t have luck on your side, it shows where we’re actually at,” Norris explained.
He added that their troubles are not “track specific”, and expected to struggle again in the upcoming British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
McLaren made many errors during the race in Canada, at some point miscommunicating with the Norris, as well as a botched double-stack pit stop, something the 22-year-old had no explanation to.
“I mean, I’m just trying everything I can to get past Alex,” Norris said of the team miscommunication. “So I thought I’d lift off for a couple laps and try and cool the tyres and have another crack at it.
“But after I lifted off, they then told me to box to overtake so it was like two seconds behind where I could have been so, yeah, just messy, really, we just need to do better with all of that.
In the end, it was a “very rough day” according to Norris who concluded: “I just want a cold bath and an ice cream and just go home.”
Just one of those weekends hey. pic.twitter.com/gw2calRYlg
— Lando Norris (@LandoNorris) June 19, 2022