Norris: We were on the losing end

McLaren had the pace to score a strong result on Sunday at Zandvoort, Norris' strong qualifying performance in Saturday being ample proof of that, but the team's decision not to pit him on the first lap when the skies opened up, a decision that proved costly.

As such the Woking squad had to settle to P7 with Norris and P9 with Oscar Piastri, on a day when a much stronger result was on the table.

Reflecting on his race in McLaren's post race media brief, Norris said: "If I start by looking at the final positions, we got some points, which is a good thing but not as many as we should have got today.

"We made some incorrect decisions and on a day like today, that can win or lose you a lot of time. We were just on the losing end," he regretted.

"We'll review it, we'll make sure we do a better job next time. I think it's impossible to be perfect with this, it's just about limiting your mistakes.

"We've got some work to do but we're getting there," the 23-year-old, who survived a late race skirmish with Mercedes George Russell, concluded.

Piastri was left out on dry tyres in the first rainy spell, asked to brave it out, which he did quite well, given than he did not bin his MCL60 in such treacherous conditions, but the price he paid was high, finishing P9 having started from P8. He added in McLaren's race report: "P9, not the most straightforward of afternoons.

"I think we maybe could have taken a few more opportunities that were there but all-in-all not a terrible afternoon and definitely some things to learn from. At one point it was looking a lot worse so it was a nice comeback in the second half of the race.

"We'll definitely learn what we could have done a bit differently before heading to Monza with the goal of scoring more points," the Australian rookie concluded.

Andrea Stella, McLaren's Team Principal, summed up his tough day at the office, he said: "After a busy race, with changing weather conditions, we finish P7 and P9, scoring some important points. But the reality is we could have got more today as we missed a couple of opportunities.

"With Lando, we hesitated too much at the start of the race before pitting for Intermediate tyres. On Oscar's side we opted to stay out through the rain on dry tyres, where he did an excellent job. From there his race was unfolding well, but unfortunately he locked the front tyres, needed to pit and we lost the advantage gained.

"We don't give up. The good news is that the car was, again, quite competitive. So we will review where we could have improved and go again in Italy," Stella concluded.