Norris dismisses own excuse: 'Back foot but not as much as Verstappen'

Lando Norris missed FP1 because McLaren used it as part of the mandatory rookie practice session. FP2 was a Pirelli tyre test, and at the end of the session, he could only use medium tyres. He only got his first soft tyre run on Saturday morning in FP3.

"[My lap wasn't] good enough, clearly. Honestly, I'm relatively happy-ish, still to be P3. Not a great day on Friday. I missed FP1 and then with the alternate tyres. So I felt like a bit on the back foot. But not as much as what Max was," Norris said, alluding to the fact The Dutchman was plagued by engine problems in practice, and Red Bull opted to change it overnight.

"But not been that comfortable at all. Found some good steps into qualifying. Q1 and Q2 were very good, but I found the limit very quickly. I was happy to find the limit and things looked good, but just couldn't progress from there. The car was too difficult to drive in Q3, too difficult to get three-tenths out of it compared to Carlos [Sainz]. It looked like it could have been better, but I think we finished where we should be. Pretty much every corner I was close to locking up and making mistakes," he added.

Can Norris beat Verstappen in the race?

Norris will start from P3, with Verstappen ahead in P2. Norris has to bridge a 57-point gap in the remaining five Grand prix weekends so has his work cut out. The 24-year-old is not confident he can improve during the race.

"Race pace is a tough one to know. I don't have the confidence to say yes, we can just beat them on pace. Like today. Not on their level, but tomorrow's [Sunday] another day. If we can have a good start, hopefully it's exciting down to turn one. Carlos is going to be fast. Like you said, he's got nothing to lose. They've been the fastest for the last few weekends. So we'll try our best, but I don't think we have the pace to compare to them at the minute," Norris concluded.