McLaren kept Norris brake problems hidden: "Not a nice feeling"

The Woking-based outfit had looked set for a comfortable one-two finish at the Shanghai International Circuit with Norris trailing team-mate Oscar Piastri, who had dominated from his first career pole position.

But an ever-worsening issue with his brakes left Norris fighting his car - his brake pedal lengthening lap by lap as his McLaren pit wall's urgings for caution increased in the later stages of the race.

Norris: "They started to go quite early"

A 10-second gap to Mercedes driver George Russell was eradicated in the closing laps but Norris held onto second. Explaining the severity of the issues, the championship leader said: "I think they started to go quite early.

"But you always get a bit of a tendency for the brakes to get a tiny bit longer. I think the team was hiding it from me because they saw the problem starting a lot earlier and they knew it was going to be a problem.

"But like the last 10 laps, I was pretty nervous about just being able to finish the race because it was noticeable how much worse it was getting every single lap and every braking zone. It's really not a nice feeling when you're in the car and you expect a nice solid pedal and there's just nothing and it goes to the floor. Doesn't fill you with confidence, especially on a fast track like this."

On the chance of dropping out of the race entirely, Norris added: "So we were lucky simply to finish the race and still to finish ahead of George.

"We were very lucky. I think the last couple laps were 3 or 4 seconds or more off. So we had a difficult ending and I would have loved to have pushed a little bit more and tried to give Oscar a bit of a run, but not today. So something we need to understand and make sure it doesn't happen again."

This article was written in collaboration with Kimberley Hoefnagel