Lando Norris hurting over 'impossible' F1 title defence

Lando Norris has expressed his hurt at having to endure what feels like a "pretty impossible" defence of his F1 drivers' championship.

The McLaren driver has suffered extensive reliability issues six rounds into the campaign, almost all of which have emanated from the Mercedes power unit in the back of his MCL40. 

After the Woking-based squad registered a double Did Not Start at the Chinese Grand Prix, due to unrelated power unit electrical issues, Norris also failed to reach the chequered flag due to other power unit problems in Canada and Monaco, too.

The British driver has also had his running curtailed in other sessions on numerous occasions, and despite taking victory in the Miami sprint, which he followed up with a second-place finish in the grand prix in Florida, his title defence has not really got started.

Sitting sixth in the standings, 98 points adrift of leader Kimi Antonelli, Norris was asked how he is handling the onslaught of mechanical adversity.

"I think I'm dealing [with it] okay, to be honest," the 11-time grand prix winner told media, including RacingNew365.

"It hurts, of course, because I know I'm not still fighting for wins, and we're not fighting for podiums and things like that at the moment, but I was still optimistic at the very early part of the season, if we started not so strong, that the season is long and we can come from a points deficit through the middle of the year to the end of the year, and hopefully finish strong and be able to fight."

Norris explained how the disjointed and fragmented start to the season has prevented him from building rhythm and flow, leaving him down on confidence. 

"But when you keep having not even an amazing weekend, but when you have things that keep going wrong, you cannot build confidence in the car, you cannot try things," he said.

"All of this is making any title defence pretty impossible for the time being. So, it hurts me, but it also hurts the whole team.

"None of us wants to not finish races. We all want to give ourselves another chance to defend the constructors' and to defend the drivers', but for the time being, it's just impossible.

"So, we just have to keep working hard. It hurts, but that's just racing sometimes."