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Norris battled through tonsillitis at Spanish GP
Lando Norris fought his way to eighth place in the Spanish Grand Prix despite suffering from tonsillitis.
The McLaren driver was feeling unwell earlier in the weekend but it wasn’t until closer to the race that his illness was diagnosed, and he was visibly struggling with his health on Sunday.
After fighting his way from 11th on the grid to finish a competitive eighth, Norris admitted it was one of the toughest challenges of his career to drive in temperatures nearing 100F.
“I was feeling really unwell before the race as I'm suffering with tonsillitis, and that, in combination with the high temperatures, made this one of the hardest races I’ve ever done,” Norris said. “I've been a bit on the backfoot this weekend as most of my energy has been spent fighting off this illness.
“I've had to miss a lot of engineering sessions, which has compromised my weekend, and I definitely wasn't as prepared for the grand prix as I could have been. With that in mind, I'm really pleased to have come out of the race with decent points for the team.
“The team have been working really hard to bring performance to the car, so I'm glad we could take something from the weekend. We’ll look at the data over the next few days, see if there’s any additional performance we can extract from the car and make sure we’re ready to go for Monaco.”
Norris didn’t carry out any post-race commitments as he was attended to by the McLaren doctor, and team principal Andreas Seidl said it was an impressive performance in the circumstances.
“He didn’t feel well all weekend, so a tough weekend for him but he was battling through,” Seidl told SpeedCity Broadcasting. “I can’t thank him enough for the fighting spirit he has shown, scoring important points for us.
“Obviously he’s not feeling great now after this tough race in these conditions but we have very good medical support here in place as well. It’s important now he gets good rest in these next four days and then we go again.”
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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