Eliminated in Q2 after exceeding track limits, Lando Norris admits that a mystery illness is compromising his performance this weekend.

"I've not been great all weekend, to be honest," said the youngster in the moments after a qualifying session which saw him finish eighth only to have his time deleted moments later, after the chequered flag, for exceeding the track limits at Turn 12, thereby promoting Mick Schumacher to the Q3 shoot-out.

"It's not COVID," he insisted. "I'm just suffering with my throat and my eyes, and seeing, which doesn't help... my sleep and everything, and energy levels, it's probably the worst I've had in a long time. I'm definitely not at my peak this weekend."

Referring to his deleted time, he said: "What makes it so tricky on this corner is you have the gravel run off, and you have 10 centimetres or so of track which you can't use before the gravel.

"In some cases it's much easier to just say the gravel is the limit, and everyone pushes up to the gravel, and if you go off there's a punishment already.

"I don't know, it's been a rule all season, the white line is the limit, so I just didn't stick to it," he admitted.

The Briton's failure to keep it on the black stuff meant that for the first time this season he was out-qualified by teammate Daniel Ricciardo who will line-up ninth on the grid.

"I think we're still kind of learning about the new bits," said the Australian. "With updates and new bits it's not kind of always as simple as just bolting them on and sending the car. I think once you put them on you also need to figure out how to balance the car well with that.

"So I think we're still trying to figure out the best balance with the new bits," he admitted. "I'm not yet sure if we've like really maximise the true performance of them, but we're still going through a learning phase, and I think to get into Q3 was solid. But we're still obviously trying to chase a bit of lap time.

"But as a whole it was not a bad result, because we hadn't been rapid all weekend, and I don't think Q3 was a guarantee by any means. It was like a target, and I think it was a solid job that we were able to get in there."

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