Lando Norris reveals 'pretty shocking' struggle during Silverstone fightback

Lando Norris described his sprint qualifying session at Silverstone as "pretty shocking" after brake duct damage to his MCL40 left the defending F1 drivers' champion fighting for survival in SQ2 before a late repair allowed him to recover to sixth on the grid.

The McLaren driver, who finished just 32 milliseconds ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri in seventh, revealed the extent to which the damage compromised his car during what became a fraught afternoon at his home grand prix.

"It [hampered me] a lot more than I thought because only for the final run did we fix it," Norris said after sprint qualifying.

"The guys did a good job on fixing it for the last run, but the car was completely different and way better again."

Norris sustained the brake duct damage in SQ1, which carried over into SQ2 and left him vulnerable. He was only 10th fastest in that middle segment of the session, scraping through to SQ3 by a margin of just 81 milliseconds over Alpine's Pierre Gasly. It was a narrow escape for the Briton, who could easily have been eliminated.

McLaren's mechanics managed to repair the damage before SQ3, and the transformation was immediate. Norris jumped from the cusp of elimination to sixth, leapfrogging Piastri in the process, though he was left feeling he had more to give.

"It felt pretty shocking for most of the session. Lucky we managed to fix it because it felt like a completely different car," Norris said.

"But by the time I got the feeling for the final lap, I felt like we could have pushed way more. Just unfortunate today, but also the pace was there or thereabouts."

The MCL40 had already looked tricky in practice, with Norris seventh in FP1, over a second adrift of Lewis Hamilton's pace-setting Ferrari. The brake duct issue compounded what was already a difficult start to the weekend.

Looking ahead to the sprint at the British Grand Prix, Norris was realistic about where McLaren stands relative to the cars ahead.

Hamilton took sprint pole in commanding fashion, with Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli joining him on the front row, while George Russell's pace appears to be out of reach for now.

"The cars we are around, maybe Red Bull we can potentially compete against," Norris added. "The Mercedes of George is clearly just a lot quicker.

"I felt happier at the end. I just need to understand a few things and see what we can improve tomorrow."