McLaren pace struggles "not a big shock" - Norris

Lando Norris has conceded McLaren's lowly position in F1's pecking order after the first qualifying of the year is "not a big shock".

Norris will line up for the Bahrain Grand Prix in a lowly 13th with team-mate Daniel Ricciardo five places further back as the Woking-based team struggled to drag pace out of the MCL36.

The qualifying performance marked a sharp swing in fortunes since the beginning of the campaign when Norris and Ricciardo topped individual sessions as frequently as Ferrari in the first pre-season test in Barcelona.

Asked why the pace had fallen away, Norris explained: "Just the type of track, quite simply.

"I think we just showed a little bit more performance than we had or maybe other people didn't show as much as what they had.

"Other people have brought updates, we have as well, but maybe they have brought bigger ones and better ones. Tough to say. A lot of it is track as well.

"Barcelona is more biased towards medium and high speed, here is more biased towards low-speed corners and that is where we are struggling a lot and the medium and higher speed corners are where we are performing a little bit better.

"It is just there are more weaknesses here for us and we are already learning where those strengths and weaknesses are.

Insisting there was no surprise for the team as to its position in the pecking order, Norris continued: "I don't think it caught us out too much or we were too surprised.

"Of course, people who were just looking at the lap time were just looking from Barcelona to Bahrain but not a big shock for us.

"Just a tough one because you never want to be P13, you want to be in Q3 but it is just not where we are at right now."

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