Already on Friday Lando Norris was fifth “Best of the Rest” behind Ferrari and Red Bull in Monaco. The McLaren driver also confirmed this position in qualifying on Saturday and took fifth place on the grid, while his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo failed in Q2 and only qualified 14th.
Norris’ performance is all the more remarkable considering the Briton was battling tonsillitis at Barcelona from which he is still not 100 per cent recovered. On Saturday he opened up about his illness in detail for the first time and made it clear how tough Barcelona were for him.
“It’s been a long week because I was suffering so much from the tonsillitis and the fever and everything the previous week,” said the 22-year-old. “Then racing made it worse than it should have been.”
“But it was something that had to be done and I was so glad I did it. It just took a toll on me physically. That’s why I struggled a lot on Sunday night,” he says, looking back on the race in which he finished eighth.
Norris: “I can now eat and drink again”
After that, he focused fully on getting healthy again. “I did everything I could do, literally didn’t speak to anyone,” reveals the McLaren driver. “I’m on the mend. My throat is much better. I can eat and drink now which is a good start. Something I couldn’t do last week.”
He couldn’t sleep at all either. And making up for this deficit was not that easy: “It takes time.” That’s why Norris says that while he’s feeling better in Monaco now, he’s not fully recovered.
“I know I’m not 100 percent yet. You can probably tell by the way my face is red. There are a few things I’m still struggling with. But it’s a lot better. I’m more confident that when I get in the car, I’m in control and I’m not just a passenger anymore.”
At the same time, Norris knows that every detail counts, especially in Monaco. “You want to give 100 percent physically. And I know that I’m still a long way from that, even if I have the feeling that I can do a good job.”
When asked how much performance he still lacks, he estimates: “When I say that I’m far from it, I mean that it can be a tenth, a tenth and a half. So I think it’s even better today could have run if everything had gone perfectly. Nonetheless, I’m very happy with my placement. Fifth place is still a good result for us.”
He did make a few small mistakes here and there. “That disappointed me a bit,” he admits. “There’s still a step missing from the guys in front of us to be there consistently. Because we were two to three tenths short all weekend.”
At Barcelona, Norris thought about retiring but…
Asked if he considered retiring at any point during the Spanish Grand Prix, Norris reveals: “There were certainly points, quite a lot of points. I think one thing that really saved everything was That was the first time I used a drinking bottle in the car.”
Normally he doesn’t even have a drinking bottle on board. “I tried it out when it was introduced in Formula 1 and I hated it. I’m not a fan of it at all,” reveals the McLaren driver. “I’ve never used one since. I don’t even drive with a bottle in the car.”
But in Barcelona he decided to do it – fortunately, as it turned out: “At the end of the warm-up lap before the start I had to drink a few sips because I was already struggling. I had to keep sipping, about every lap, what not comfortable because the water heats up so quickly.”
Still, Norris says, “I think without it I probably wouldn’t have made it past three or two laps, to be honest. That goes to show the rate at which I’ve been draining physically and mentally, how much I’ve been struggling. But only one few sips per lap really saved me.”
And although he often thought about parking his car early, he was determined not to do exactly that: “We had done everything to get me in the best possible condition, so I just had to try.”
“I would have hated to give up or end the race weekend without at least trying to put in a few laps. It’s just not the mentality I identify with. I’ve thought about it many times and decisions have been made . But I think at the end of the day it was always the right one and I was happy with it,” Norris notes.