Lando Norris 'mistakes' called out by McLaren chief after costly Max Verstappen blow

team principal was very honest about ' performance after qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix in third. The Briton will begin the race behind Ferrari star Carlos Sainz, who , and Red Bull ace Max Verstappen.

Norris clocked the quickest laps in Q1 and Q2 as he put himself in prime position to start Sunday's race from the front of the pack.

But he came unstuck in Q3 as he allowed his title rival and Sainz to get the better of him.

And after the qualifying session had come to an end, Stella explained: "Overall, I would say the car during this qualifying session was competitive, was in condition to score the pole position today, even though Carlos in the final session kind of raised the bar quite a bit.

"But if we take the natural progression, then with Lando we might have been there. We have to say that the two laps in Q3 weren't great.

"On the first one there were a couple of mistakes and this overheated the tyres and then the tyres were going away from Lando.

"In the second one again he wasn't very clean but it was important to make sure he was decent enough to be there on the first or second row."

Norris, however, insisted he did everything he could to clock the quickest time possible as he stated: "I was at the limit. I couldn't go any quicker - it's more I think the others just didn't get the most out of it.

"Pretty much every corner I was close to locking up and making mistakes, and I did that in my Q3 run one lap. But I definitely had nowhere near close to three-tenths left in the car. So it was more that they just went quicker.

"I got everything out of the car already in Q1 and Q2 and made us look like the ones to beat. But honestly, since FP1 Ferrari have been the guys to beat, and Carlos is on top today - so it'll be challenging to beat them."

And in a separate interview, the 24-year-old added: "I struggled to get much more out of the car in the final two laps. I tried in Q3, round one, but it clearly didn't work. So I just had to drive much more under the limit in the second run.

"I'm happy. I think we just have not had the pace of the Ferrari all weekend. Maybe we could have had Max, but he did a good lap. Mine was not as clean as maybe what I would have liked. I just wanted to get a good-ish lap in."