In fact, Lando Norris said that if he had felt 100% and made no mistakes during his lap, he could have qualified even higher.
Speaking at length for the first time about his recent illness, Norris made it clear how difficult the Spanish GP weekend was for him to fight for eighth place.
“It’s been a long week with the amount of load I’ve been through last week with tonsillitis and fever and everything,” Norris said when asked by Motorsport.com about his condition.
“And then running with that disease made it even worse than it needed to be. But it was something I had to do, and I was so happy I did it.”
“It just took a toll on me physically, so I was in a lot of pain on Sunday night.”
“I did everything I could do, literally not talk to anyone and stuff. I’m still recovering.”
“As for the throat, I’m much better, I can eat and drink now, which is already a good start, something I couldn’t do last week.”
“I didn’t get any sleep last week, so I’m catching up, and catching up in a couple of days is hard. It takes time.”
Norris insisted that although he felt better at the Monte-Carlo circuit this weekend, he has not yet fully recovered.
“I know I’m not 100% right now,” he explained. “You can probably tell by how red my face is, there are some things I’m still struggling with.”
“But I’m much better, I’m more confident that when I get in the car, I’m aware of everything, rather than almost being a passenger.”
“But this is difficult, because I know that especially here in Monaco, you need to be on top of everything. And this is where you want to be physically 100%.”
“I know I’m still quite a ways from that, although I feel like I can do a good job.
Explaining how much performance he could be losing from his illness, the McLaren F1 driver said: “When I say I’m a long way off, I mean it could be a tenth, a tenth and a half.
“But if I’m talking about a tenth and a half today, and a couple of little mistakes I made, then there’s a chance I could have qualified higher.”
“So I think I’m very confident and if things were perfect it could have been even better this Saturday. I’m very happy with where I’m at though, fifth is still a good result for us.”
“We’re still one step behind the guys in front to be there consistently, because we’ve always been within two or three tenths all weekend.”
“I’m happy to be fifth, I was happy with my laps, just a few little mistakes here and there, which just let me down.
“But I want to put it down more to my conscience and a couple of things I’m still struggling with.”
Asked if he had considered at any point during the Barcelona weekend not continuing, Norris made the intriguing revelation that he doesn’t usually carry a bottle of water or any other beverage in the car, but he did last weekend.
“There were interesting points,” he said. “I think one thing that really saved everything was that it was the first time I’d ever used a drink bottle in the car.”
“I tried to wear it when I first got into F1 but he hated it, I’m not a fan of it at all. So I’ve never worn one since.”
“For the first time, we thought it would be a good idea to try it, and it really saved me, I think. At the end of the warm-up lap before the start I already had to drink, because I was already suffering.”
“But I had to keep drinking, like every lap, which is not good, because the drink gets hot very quickly.”
“I think without that I probably wouldn’t have made it past three laps, or two laps, honestly. So that was my level of decline in physical and mental terms of how much I was suffering.”
“But only a few sips per lap really saved me.”
Norris says he was determined not to pull out of the Barcelona race despite tonsillitis.
“Of course it crossed my mind many times,” he added.
“It was something that had to be taken into account with how much he was suffering. But we were doing everything we could to make sure he was in the best possible place and he had to try.”
“I would have hated to have given up, or finished the weekend and not at least tried to do a few laps.”
“That’s not the mindset I’d like to stay with. It went through my head many times, and decisions were made. But I think in the end it was always the right one, so I was happy.”
