A frustrated Lando Norris says he was left stranded in Q2 in qualifying at Zandvoort after taking his McLaren's set-up "in the wrong direction" for the afternoon session.
Norris was outpaced in qualifying by teammate Daniel Ricciardo for the second race in succession and will line up P13 on Sunday's grid while the Aussie will start his Dutch Grand Prix from tenth position.
Norris admitted to being "frustrated" by his underperformance but acknowledged that he had made the wrong set-up call.
"I just didn't get that second attempt because of the red flags," he said. "I didn't do a good enough lap in my first attempt and just didn't make it in.
"A bit of a shame, because I think this weekend so far we've been alright, possibly went in a little bit in the wrong direction with the set-up for qualifying, but we make those mistakes sometimes.
©McLaren
"It was kind of my decision really to do what we did with the car. Maybe it didn't pay off as much as we were hoping and I didn't put the best of laps in, and it's simple as that.
"But it's close, especially with the Alfa Romeo up there, the AlphaTauris up there, the Alpines… It's just tight and close, and tough. When we don't put it all together, we end up where we did."
Asked if his McLaren's set-up would perhaps prove rewarding in the race, Norris said that he hopes it will, but with overtaking at a premium around Zandvoort, he expects a "tricky" afternoon.
"We know it's a qualifying-based track, so it's not like we tried to prepare for tomorrow, whether or not it's going to help or not," he added.
"On pure pace today, we maybe struggled a little bit more, so maybe it's not going to be the best thing for tomorrow. But it might be with the tyres, and tyre savings and things like that.
"Tricky, 'cause either way, even if you save the tyres one tenth a lap compared to other people, it's so difficult to overtake, it's going to be hard to do much else.
"But we'll do our best and see if we can get into the points."
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