Lando Norris quipped that he “shat myself” in the wake of going off track en route to the grid at Formula 1’s German Grand Prix.
McLaren driver Norris ultimately failed to reach the chequered flag owing to a loss of power, but post-race he revealed that he was almost unable to take the start.
“The only thing that was stupid that led to a lot of crashes was the drag strip,” said Norris.
“Luckily, I did it on my laps to the grid, because we had an onboard that we had to watch, the one magic lap from Fernando [Alonso] when he was with Ferrari, and he goes two wheels over the kerb, onto the drag strip, and everything looks fine.
“So I did my lap to the grid, I tried it, and I genuinely thought I was going to be out of the race before I even started. I put the clutch in, full opposite lock, I’m not exaggerating, I shat myself!
“I was like oh shit this is not going to be good! Because the guys were waiting there to put me up on the jacks and put me in my positions, and I had the biggest fright of my life.”
The German Grand Prix marked Norris’ first experience of a wet Formula 1 race.
“It was tricky, the race itself, but as tricky as it was, kind of looking reasonably good,” he said.
“We didn’t make all the right calls to begin with, there were a couple of small mistakes. We didn’t box onto the Inters in the first stint as early as we should have done.
“But that was more on my part to be honest, more from my experience of not knowing when I need to box when the Inters and going to be better than the Wets. So that was more my mistake.
“I don’t know much they lost, but we lost a bit. But I think we recovered pretty well, our pace on the Inters was pretty decent. And then had the problem.
“Ihad another race sitting on the sidelines, watching with my engineers, so obviously frustrated.”
