Norris: Barely making eighth gear, we were that slow in the straight

Despite claiming ahead of the Formula 1 weekend in Belgium that he hoped his MCL60 will run well around the historic track following a string of strong performances, Norris was playing catch up all weekend long, outpaced by rookie teammate Oscar Piastri.

Piastri outqualified Norris on Friday - sixth and seventh respectively - while the Australian was second fastest in the Sprint Shootout, finishing the Sprint Race also second. Norris was fifth and sixth in the Shootout and the Sprint on Saturday respectively.

During Sunday's Grand Prix, Piastri was out by the first lap with steering damaging following a first lap incident with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, while Norris finished seventh, where he started after dropping back early on, then climbing his way up the order.

Reflecting on his lack of performance in Spa, Norris told F1's Official Website: "Nothing, I was just barely making eighth gear, we were that slow in the straight.

"I just couldn’t defend, I couldn’t attack. It was impossible to overtake; I didn’t overtake one person on the straight today. We were too slow.

"I think I only overtook two or three people today and that was all in the corners. It was painful," he lamented. "The beginning was so painful, but we tried and to go on to the hard and we got done over again. The hard was not a good enough tyre.

"So, we had one thing left to try and that was put a soft tyre on," he went on. "This was already on Lap 24, 25. So I was expecting to box again for another soft at one point. But we were somehow in seventh, we undercut like 10 cars, I think, which I was pretty surprised by. Good surprised of course.

"I thought I was going to be boxing again, and they were like, ‘Okay we are going to try and go to the end.’ I pushed the tyres so much in the beginning, I thought my race was going to be over again and I was going to start to struggle too much.

"But we kept the tyres alive and still managed to finish P7, stay ahead of Esteban, who was closing quite quickly in the last couple of laps, so I’m happy," Norris said.

Elaborating on his MCL60's straight-line deficiency, Norris added: "Everyone was overtaking me before the DRS activation zone. Honestly, I had a run on Alex [Albon] out of Turn 1. I was coming at him out of Turn 1, I had new tyres, he had old tyres, and I think by the end of the straight, he pulled, like, three or four car lengths on me.

"This was me with DRS, using overtake. It was just painful. I actually could not overtake a car on the straight today, no matter how good my exit was. We got it wrong; I think we've admitted it already.

“We got it wrong, we were way too high on downforce, and it didn’t help us in pretty much any way, so we’ll review and make sure we do a better job next time," the Briton maintained.

In McLaren press release after the race, Norris tried to focus on the positives from Spa; he commented: "A good result. I think we can be pleased with that after the start of the race being frustrating for us.

"We ended up finishing P7, which was, I think as good as the race could have gone today. Tough for the team, but we scored some good points, and we have to take that going into the break," Norris concluded.

Norris now heads into the summer break eighth in the 2023 F1 Drivers' Championship with 69 points. He has two podiums so far this year in Britain and Hungary.