Despite suffering from tonsillitis, Lando Norris finished 8th in today's Spanish Grand Prix, putting further pressure on teammate Daniel Ricciardo who has a "really, really sad race".

Having admitted following yesterday's qualifying session that he had been feeling unwell, but insisting that it was not COVID, following today's Grand Prix Lando Norris admitted that he was suffering from tonsillitis.

All of which puts his drive to eighth in admirable perspective, whilst putting further pressure on teammate Daniel Ricciardo who finished a distant 12th.

"I was feeling really unwell before the race as I'm suffering with tonsillitis," revealed the British youngster at race end, "and that, in combination with the high temperatures, made this one of the hardest races I've ever done.

"I've been a bit on the back foot this weekend as most of my energy has been spent fighting off this illness," he admitted. "I've had to miss a lot of engineering sessions, which has compromised my weekend."

Having exceeded the track limits his best time in Q2 yesterday was deleted, thereby leaving him to start the race from 11th. However, a solid performance today saw him back in the points after crashing out in Miami.

"I definitely wasn't as prepared for the Grand Prix as I could have been," said Norris. "With that in mind, I'm really pleased to have come out of the race with decent points for the team."

However, it was another disappointing afternoon for teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who, courtesy of Norris' track limits error, out-qualified his teammate for the first time this season on Saturday. Losing a number of places in the opening laps, the Australian never recovered, and ended the race in 12th.

"Yeah, I wasn't there from the start," he told the media. "It wasn't like I had understeer or... I mean I did, but it was just an overall a lack of grip.

"I thought at the start of the race it was very, very slow," he continued, "I thought maybe, I don't know, temperatures just got too high or something with the tyres.

"You know, at the start, you're obviously fighting other cars and maybe things like that can happen. But we did a three-stop race, so I had four sets of tyres today, and was very, very slow on all of them, I'm not sure how.

"A really, really sad race," he concluded.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 23/05/2022 1:21

"The one thing that is guaranteed is that Ricciardo is an honest broker and if he says he is at a loss to explain why the car was so slow then that is, IMO, the sad truth. Like he said, he needs to find out why other cars just drove past. Watching the timing screens and seeing him drop positoions made me think first off that he some malfunction...but evidently not? I do have faith in Riciardo's race winning skills and this problem I fear is not something that can be entirely placed on him as some wish to imply. As Andreas said, 'give him the car and he'll give us the results' and I tend to agree. As Daniel also said, he had four sets of tyres to use and the problem was there on all of them. If the car is not suffering any major mechanical malfunctions then, IMO, it has to be set up. There is really no other avenue to explore by, comparison with Norris. Given that he now faces Monaco in a few days McLaren will need to be nifty on their toes to make changes. Ricciardo has a fabulous history in Monaco with one and one half wins to his name and hopefully he can get amongst it next weekend.... but I wouldn't back the sheep station on it happening."

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2. Posted by Simon in Adelaide, 22/05/2022 23:00

"No need for panic at the moment as Daniel is only 28 points behind Lando but then, Sergio is 25 points behind Max, Carlos is 39 points behind Charles, and Lewis is 28 points behind George.

We are only 6 races into the season and some have adapted better to the these new cars than others. If by the mid-season break Daniel has not closed the gap then he might want to start thinking about a future outside F1."

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Norris battles his way to 8th despite tonsillitis

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