Lando Norris has aired his dissatisfaction with a "frustrating" disqualification at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, after McLaren did not get "balance right" when pushing to extract maximum performance from the MCL39.
The British driver finished second on the road in Sin City, with team-mate Oscar Piastri fourth. That result allowed him to extend his lead in the F1 drivers' championship to 30 points.
However, their double exclusion means it is cut back down to 24 with two rounds, including a sprint, remaining in the F1 season.
More costly for McLaren is that Max Verstappen is now on equal points with Piastri, having won in Nevada, as he hunts down the Woking-based squad's two drivers in pursuit of a fifth consecutive crown.
"A frustrating end to today," Norris said in a team statement published after the disqualification for illegal plank wear was confirmed.
"We had to do some managing towards the end of the race, and now we know it was due to some issues on our car, which have unfortunately resulted in us being disqualified."
Both Norris and Piastri's MCL39s were found to have fallen foul of the minimum plank thickness of 9mm in the post-race checks, with the matter referred to the FIA soon after.
The stewards took a dim view and followed expectations by disqualifying the pair, as was the case for Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly in China and Nico Hulkenberg in Bahrain.
"It’s frustrating to lose so many points," Norris added. "As a team, we’re always pushing to find as much performance as we can, and we clearly didn’t get that balance right today.
"Nothing I can do will change that now; instead, full focus switches to Qatar, where we'll aim to go out and deliver the best possible performance in every session."
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