Norris laments “silly mistake” at “easiest corner” in Saudi GP Q1 exit

Norris tagged the inside concrete wall through the final corner of the Jeddah street circuit to sustain a broken steering arm that forced him to pit for repairs after only one flying lap.

The team battled to repair the car in time for Norris during the opening 18-minute segment but narrowly missed the window to leave the Briton to start from 19th place.

Norris explained the error away as “just a misjudgement”, adding that it was “a mistake that I shouldn’t make” through the comparatively open left-hander.

He continued: “It’s probably one of the easiest corners on the track, in terms of judgement. I just got it wrong. Simple as that. No excuses.”

Norris said the outcome was particularly frustrating given the underlying pace of the MCL60, which enabled rookie team-mate Oscar Piastri to progress into Q3 and run ninth-fastest – but will start eighth due to Charles Leclerc’s grid penalty.

“The car was performing well today,” said Norris. “The team have done a good job all weekend to probably extract a bit more from it than we did in Bahrain [where Norris qualified 11th].

“It’s definitely suited to the track a bit more than in Bahrain and clearly was good enough for Q3 today. I was still feeling good. It’s just a silly mistake, to be honest.”

On sustaining the damage, Norris said: “I could feel it, it went straight away the steering.

“The guys did a very good job, the mechanics, to almost get it out. It pretty much was done by the end of the session so if I was into Q2, it would be fine.

“If there was a small red flag, the guys were pushing as hard as they could to get me back out… I let them down.”

Norris reckoned if he could avoid any first-stint collisions on the high-speed and narrow Jeddah circuit, he would be able to make sound progress up the order.

“I’m confident we have a reasonable car,” he said. “It might not be easy to overtake with where we’re strong and where we’re weak compared to some other cars. But of course, I’m optimistic that I can go forward.

“We can definitely go forward. We have the pace to do it.

“It is just going to be about putting that into a plan, whether there’s going to be VSC or a safety car. I hope so because it makes our life a little bit easier and it’s easier to jump two or three spots rather than one at a time.”