By Andrew Benson

Copyright bbc

Fast forward 24 hours, and Norris summed up his race this way: “I don’t really care how people look at it. Of course I wanted to do better today. I needed to do better yesterday. But we went out first. This was just our decision. We paid the price for that.

“I also could have ended up in the wall and gone long and something worse happened. I feel like I was close to maximising today. It didn’t maybe look like it from the outside.

“The tricky conditions, the water yesterday, the little bit of rain, going out first on track, all added up to making it a worse weekend. Our position today, if I started second, I think I would have finished second.”

Stella agreed that, once he started where he did, Norris’ race went about as well as it could have.

“We did not offer Lando a car that was in condition to progress through the field,” he said. “And I think actually Lando had a good race.

“He stayed out of trouble, he was clean, but there was not enough pace.

“Lando had a strong race. He raced to the limit of the potential that was available in the car. I think no other driver in Lando’s car could have scored more.”

Although now within a race victory of Piastri, Norris accepts that the championship is still an uphill struggle.

“I’m doing the best I can,” he said. “I’ve still got a lot of points to make up against a pretty good driver. An incredible driver. I just need to keep my head down.”