Lando Norris had a difficult session in Q2 in Austria as he started to feel some brake issues, failing to make it into the top 10 shootout.
The Briton’s running in FP1 had abruptly come to a halt when he noticed some smoke emanating from the bottom of his car, so he stopped, and the car was returned to the pits.
Unfortunately, the mechanics did not have enough time to fix the problem, and he went into qualifying with very little practice under his belt.
The 22-year-old out-qualified team-mate Daniel Ricciardo by three tenths in Q1 as the Australian was eliminated in P16, but Norris was unable to put any representative laps together in the second session.
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He locked up into a lot of the braking zones – particularly Turns One and Four, and he ran off on the exit of the first corner on his final effort.
He reported over the radio that he was “scared to hit the brakes” as the car slid in the braking zones, and he could only “focus on not going straight on” as opposed to “any exit.”
The Briton was forced to take on another power unit after his FP1 issue, and that conspired with a brake pedal that was going to the floor to give McLaren their worst qualifying of the season.
“I don’t know the exact problem,” Norris explained in an interview with Sky Sports.
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“I don’t know if it’s something to do with hydraulics or something, but it just means the brakes don’t work as they should, like the brake-by-wire and everything so we could get lucky that it somehow works on one lap and it did in Q1.
“But in Q2, every time I tried to brake, the brake pedal just goes to the floor and the car goes straight on so nothing I can do apart from brake a lot earlier and a lot less.
“So [it’s] a shame because I think we had the pace today to be in Q3, even with missing most of FP1 due to some more issues.
“So, it’s just been a frustrating day really, I should be much higher up than where we are at the minute.”
Friday evening was the sixth time this season that Norris has failed to make it into the third and final qualifying session.