Lando Norris admitted a lack of experience of starting in the wet contributed to his poor result in last Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, with the Briton ending outside the points in thirteenth.
The McLaren F1 Team racer started inside the top ten but slipped down the order on the opening lap, and once he was embroiled in the midfield battle, it was an uphill challenge to recover towards the points.
“Tough result. I wouldn’t say tough race,” said Norris. “The hardest part was my start – I had a good launch but then in the second phase I just had so much wheelspin and it all went wrong.
“That was a mistake I made. I haven’t done that many starts in the wet and I’ve never had a great one. I’ve been preparing for it, but I just couldn’t quite get it right again.
“The rest of the race was just trying to recover from that.”
Norris admits the difficulty of overtaking around the Hungaroring made for a painful afternoon, particularly when he felt the pace of the MCL35 was good enough to challenge for good points when in clear air. Unfortunately for the Briton, this was hard to find as he was stuck in traffic for the majority of the race.
“It’s such a difficult track to overtake on, I couldn’t really do too much else,” Norris admitted. “I think the pace was good, and the car was pretty good to drive. I just had a difficult start on probably one of the most important tracks to get away quickly, so on to the next one.
“It’s my first proper big mistake of the season. I need to work on it and come back stronger. A big thanks goes to everyone in the team, who’ve worked hard to put both Carlos and I in the best possible positions over these opening three races.
“I’m looking forward to putting this race behind me at my home track over the next two grands prix.”
