Lando Norris has explained that damage to his McLaren in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix cost the Brit a higher grid position for Sunday's race in Barcelona.

Norris' who has already stood on the rostrum once this season with third place in Imola, has struggled in some qualifying sessions from having his provisional front row starting lap in Imola being deleted because of a track limit infringement, before picking up damage in Spain, which meant that Norris could only manage ninth on the grid two places behind teammate Daniel Ricciardo.

The Brit, however, explained that floor damage was the reason behind him only qualifying ninth for Sunday's race.

"I ran wide between Turn 8 and 9 on run one, which was unluckily on a relatively new tyre. Then on the new tyre, the damage kind of cost me a bit, so it wasn't ideal."

Nevertheless, Norris was content with his qualifying performances so far this season when speaking to Motorsport.com ahead of this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix.

"I don't think my qualifyings have been too bad, Q1s and Q2s have been very good, and Q3 run one has often been very good. But then Q3 run two is often where it's gone a little bit downhill, but all for kind of different reasons."

"It's not because I've not been able to put laps in or put it together or anything like that. In Spain, I had damage on the car. In Imola it was for going off the track. Portugal was going too early and getting caught behind the Aston Martin. So all of them have been a bit different. I'm not too worried about that."

Norris comes into Monaco in fourth place in the driver's standings, with the Brit 17 points ahead of Ricciardo who lies in seventh in the standings with McLaren running a new special gulf livery for this weekend's visit to the streets of the principality.