Sakhir Grand Prix – McLaren’s Lando Norris will start Sunday’s race in Bahrain from the back of the grid, as McLaren have opted to fit him with a new engine and turbo.
Lando Norris will be starting Sunday’s race at the Sakhir Circuit from the back of the grid, as McLaren will fit a new engine and turbo to his car.
Norris has already used three engines and turbos throughout 2020, meaning that the fitment of the new parts trigger an automatic grid penalty that will force him to start at the back.
Norris qualified in P15 for the race, after mistiming his last run in Q2. Trying to create space for himself on track, his tyres got too cold and he was unable to go quickly enough to progress on into Q3.
“A bad quali in lots of ways and we need to work out what went wrong.” said Norris afterwards. “In Q2 the first run was okay, but the second one was a combination of not doing a great lap and also not going out at the right time.”
“We had to do a very slow out-lap to not catch any traffic, but while doing so the tyres got too cold and then it just got a bit messy from there. I couldn’t put the lap together with one lap of fuel.” Norris continued. On the track, I needed to simplify it a little bit. We just made a small mistake and it cost us today. It’s going to make our life a bit more difficult, but we’ll give it everything to score some points.”
Norris will join rookie Pietro Fittipaldi on the back row, as the Haas driver also took a penalty due to fitting of a new Energy Store and Control Electronics.
After being fitted with a new Internal Combustion Engine and Turbo Charger, @LandoNorris will start today's #SakhirGP from the back of the grid. pic.twitter.com/E1g8PHXXnL
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) December 6, 2020
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