11/07/2020
NEWS STORY
Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris are both nursing injuries following Friday's practice sessions.
The Australian bruised his knee in the heavy crash that saw the second session red-flagged.
Losing control of his Renault in Turn 9 he went off and headed into the barriers backwards. Climbing from his car it was noticeable that he was limping, and still suffering later when he arrived in the paddock.
As is always the case following such incidents he was taken to the medical centre where he was given the all-clear.
"I'm okay," he said, "I hit my knee on the steering column when it came in so I'm just a bit bruised. They checked, it's just some bruising, all's good, I'm fine.
"The car was pretty beaten up, so yeah, I feel obviously bad of course for not only my knee but for the boys and the team," he added. "I was trying to understand what went wrong in that it's one of those ones that went so quickly. I turned in, maybe a bit of a tailwind helped me out with losing the rear, but nothing with the car broke so it was obviously just on me.
"Fortunately I don't do those things too often but today I did. Sorry guys."
Meanwhile, McLaren had to amend Lando Norris' run plan after the Briton complained of being in pain, his discomfort compounded by the three-place grid penalty he incurred for passing Pierre Gasly under yellows.
"I've been struggling a bit physically with something, I don't know what," said Norris, who finished third here a week ago. "It has been pretty painful and we've had to cut down quite a few of the laps that we were planning to do just to make sure I'm in good condition for tomorrow.
"I feel fine now, and walking around," he continued, "but it's something that when I'm driving just causes me a lot of pain, particularly in the high-speed corners and when I'm braking. I've spoken to my specialist and he tried to figure it out but it's not as obvious as just pointing it out and so on.
"I've been on painkillers and whatever but it's been setting me back a lot today, it's been pretty frustrating. I've not felt confident in the car in terms of pushing it and so on, hopefully I can get fixed and be ready for the next one."
Asked to elaborate on the pain, he said: "I don't know where, in my chest, I hit the brakes and the compression it spikes up massively so I'm just afraid to brake massively, which is not ideal around here!
"But, yeah, I don't know what it is, it's something I have to look into and fix for the race."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Spielberg, here.