McLaren's Lando Norris felt as though he let his team down during Sunday's Australian Grand Prix after failing to finish in the points, despite starting eighth.
Norris put in a sensational qualifying performance on his debut, but struggled on Sunday after getting stuck behind Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi, who ran a long opening stint which cost the Briton a lot of time, benefitting those who had yet to stop, such as Nico Hulkenberg, Lance Stroll and Daniil Kvyat, all of which started outside the top ten, but finished in the points.
Norris finally got past Giovinazzi, but had lost so much time he was unable to recover and finished the race in 12th, admitting he wasn't proud of his performance.
"Of myself? Not that much," replied Norris when asked if he was proud of his first race, adding: "Of the team, I’m pretty proud. I think I had a pretty good car today. Not perfect, but overall it had enough pace in it to be in the top 10.
"I just made a couple of mistakes that put me outside of it. That’s why I’m not as happy as I was [on Saturday]. Just nice to get my first race out of the way. I was quite nervous going in, but after finishing, I’m reasonably happy."
Speaking about passing Giovinazzi, Norris said: "It was too late. It cost me the positions on Kvyat and Stroll, which obviously put me out of the points in the end. I’m a bit annoyed because there was a lot more potential.
"The car had the pace to be in the top 10, and basically I let everyone down. So I need to make sure that doesn’t happen again."
Looking ahead to the next race in Bahrain, the 19-year-old said he would look to iron out the small mistakes he made in Australia in the hope of avoiding them.
"So the start, my initial start was OK, and then I just got a bit too keen and got wheelspin, and the lock-up, I think it’s just overpushing a bit too much. But apart from that, there wasn’t a lot [wrong]. Small things here and there. It’s just working on the mistakes, working on my weak areas, the team’s weak areas, and just trying to improve."
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