Lando Norris has said his McLaren simply was not fast enough to challenge for the front two rows of the grid in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
Norris qualified in sixth at Sepang, 0.627 seconds off Max Verstappen on pole position, but will start fifth on the grid due to an engine penalty for Isack Hadjar.
Asked what went wrong for McLaren in Saturday’s qualifying, Norris responded: “We’re just slow. The car’s not good enough here.
“I mean, I think this tarmac is very different to a lot of other tracks we’ve been to this year and therefore I think you see Mercedes struggle a lot more today, especially. You see Red Bull quicker than they usually are.
“So I think the order is just shaking up a little bit. And I think we struggle a little bit more than what we were expecting because of the surface. So I think just, yeah, we struggle a bit more than we thought this weekend.
“But my lap was good. That’s the only thing I can complain about really is if I did a good lap or not. It’s down to me and I did a good lap.
“So I’m satisfied with my performance today. But just the performance of the car is a long way off.”
The reigning champion also confirmed that the power unit issue that hampered his chances at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix last weekend was still impacting his performance in Malaysia.
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“Obviously there’s always a little bit in it as drivers, but I felt like my lap was very strong,” he added. “It’s tough, like I said, because I’m still struggling a lot in the straights everywhere.
“I’m just down on every single straight, so every time I get a good exit I’m just slower at the end of the straight. It just hurts seeing this every single time.
“I should be higher up, not because I could have done a better job necessarily, but just because we’re not getting everything out of the car that we need to.
“That doesn’t make my life tough today, but it also makes it tough for tomorrow.”
