Lando Norris executed a near flawless qualifying session in Monaco, but the McLaren driver says his performance could have been even better if he had been physically at 100 per cent.
Norris will line up P5 on Sunday's grid, having nearly fully recovered from the bout of tonsillitis that hit him last weekend in Barcelona.
While still struggling a bit, the Briton felt after his strong Saturday that he's once again "on top of things" and no longer a passenger of his car.
"I know I'm not 100% now," he said. "You can probably tell by how red my face is, there's a few things I'm still struggling with.
"But it's much better, I'm more confident that when I get in the car, I'm on top of things, rather than being almost a passenger.
"But this is tough, because I know especially here in Monaco, you need to be on top of everything. And it's where you want to be physically 100%.
"I know I'm quite a way off that still, even though I feel like I can do a good job."
©McLaren
For a driver that claims to be "quite a way off", Norris left a big impression, clocking in as the top midfield contender and 0.473s off poleman Charles Leclerc.
The 22-year-old reckons that on his best day, his performance would been even better.
Read also:
"When I say I'm way off, I mean it can be a tenth, a tenth and a half," he said.
"But if I talk today about a tenth and a half, and a couple of little mistakes that I made, then there's a chance that I could have been higher, kind of thing.
"So I think there's good confidence from within that if things are perfect things could have been even better today. But nevertheless, I'm just very happy with where I am, P5 is still a good result for us.
"Still a step to the guys ahead to just be consistently there because we've been always two-three tenths off all weekend.
"P5 I'm happy with, my laps I was happy with, just some small mistakes here and there, which just let me down. But I want to put that more down to just my awareness and a couple of things that I'm still struggling with."
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
Helmut Marko has revealed that Max Verstappen’s in-season promotion from Toro Rosso to Red Bull…
On this day in 1999 in Monaco, a dominant Michael Schumacher secured his 35th career…
Sometimes at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, speed doesn’t build gradually – it arrives like it…
Nearly two decades after its last high-speed venture in Formula 1, American computing giant Intel…
Max Verstappen’s Nürburgring 24 Hours debut is already delivering the kind of storyline only he…
Audi’s 2026 Formula 1 project is already under the microscope, but racing director Allan McNish…