Lando Norris: Spanish Grand Prix “one of the hardest races I’ve ever done” due to illness

In spite of being “on the backfoot” at the Spanish Grand Prix due to illness, Lando Norris managed an impressive result of eighth place. Having started from eleventh, his solid run earned him some points to add to McLaren F1 Team’s tally. 

“Today was tough. I was feeling really unwell before the race as I’m suffering with tonsillitis, and that, in combination with the high temperatures, made this one of the hardest races I’ve ever done. I’ve been a bit on the backfoot this weekend as most of my energy has been spent fighting off this illness.”

He said that his illness hindered his preparation for the race, so to end the grand prix in the points was a success for the team. 

“I’ve had to miss a lot of engineering sessions, which has compromised my weekend, and I definitely wasn’t as prepared for the Grand Prix as I could have been. With that in mind, I’m really pleased to have come out of the race with decent points for the team.”

With the Monaco Grand Prix coming up this week, Norris said that the few days between will be used to review data and attempt to improve the car’s performance. 

“The team have been working really hard to bring performance to the car, so I’m glad we could take something from the weekend. We’ll look at the data over the next few days, see if there’s any additional performance we can extract from the car and make sure we’re ready to go for Monaco.”

“I’d love to find something positive, but it was just a struggle from the start.” – Daniel Ricciardo

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo struggled with grip and pace in Spain, sliding back from his starting position of ninth to finish in twelfth place. 

“It wasn’t a good race today. I’d love to find something positive, but it was just a struggle from the start. I was slow, and I simply had a lot less grip than everyone else around me.”

Having tried several compounds throughout the multi-stop race, He said that he was unsure of why none of the sets seemed to work well for him– something he wants to figure out as the team reflects on the race. 

“With the three stops, we had four chances on different sets of tyres, but we didn’t have the pace on any of them. I’m not really sure why, to be honest, so we’ll try to have a look and understand it.”

With the upgrades brought to Spain, Ricciardo said that he wants to understand the issues that occurred so he can aim for a better result in Monaco this weekend. 

“Hopefully, we can get on top of it as the upgrades we brought were good. We’ve got a short turnaround for Monaco and then we’ll go again and hope for a better one in a week.”

Credit: McLaren Media Centre