‘Difficult watching the TV more than driving’ – Norris ‘happy’ with P5 start in Japan after ‘painful’ weekend so far

Lando Norris admits he is satisfied starting fifth for Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix after a difficult start to the weekend means the reigning World Champion has spent more time “watching the TV than driving in the car”.

The McLaren driver has been plagued by reliability problems with his MCL40 at the Suzuka Circuit, including a suspected hydraulic leak and ERS (Energy Recovery System) issue in Free Practice 2 and 3 respectively.

The Briton completed just 29 laps across both sessions, 18 laps less than team mate Oscar Piastri achieved, and meant Norris entered Saturday Qualifying on the back foot before putting in a solid performance.

“To be ahead of one of the Ferraris after the weekend we’ve had, I think I’m pretty happy about that,” said Norris, who was unable to take part in the Chinese Grand Prix last time out, also due to a technical problem.

“It’s been difficult watching the TV more than driving in the car this weekend, or the season actually. Not been our weekend so far but I was a bit happy with Quali and just getting a few more laps under my belt and getting comfortable.

“Just always one or two steps behind and as soon as I do something better then I need to fix somewhere else. It’s just painful but I think it could have been a lot worse with the amount of laps I’ve done. I’m happy. We’re in a good position and we’ll see how we do in the race.”

Despite having got between the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, with Piastri further ahead in P3, Norris was unsure of his potential pace for Sunday’s 53-lap race due to the lack of running in practice, particularly on high fuel.

“I’ve done no laps at high fuel. Don’t know what the battery is going to do, don’t know what the engine is going to do,” he commented.

“It’s difficult, makes me have to pay extra attention tonight and just try and study everything and look at the videos and onboards of others, Oscar’s running, to understand what to expect, how to drive the car and all these things.

“Not the most confident I’ve probably been going into a Sunday but the car has been performing pretty well this weekend, the pace seems pretty decent, better than the last couple.”