Austin, Oct 21 : McLaren's Lando Norris believes he did the right thing by not giving the position back to title-rival Max Verstappen for leaving the track and gaining an advantage in the United States Grand Prix on Sunday.

The move handed a five-second time penalty to Norris which dropped him to fourth place after finishing third with the gap back to Verstappen standing at four seconds.

"I mean clearly I didn't give the position back because we thought we were in the right ' clearly we weren't. I still think we were, considering Max went off the track ' normally if you defend your position and you go off the track, you have to give the position up. In that case I was ahead, I kept my position because he needed to give it back, and that's the way it is," Norris explained.

"I think I did the correct thing, but I don't make the rules. Max drove well, it was a fun race between us, a good battle. He defended well, he did everything he had to do," he added.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc won the race ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz to gain the maximum points for the team on the weekend. But it was not the ideal weekend for McLaren as both cars finished behind podium places with Oscar Piastri coming home fifth. However, Norris, who started the race from pole position, also bagged six points after finishing third in the Sprint race.

Norris went on to criticise his own performance at the Circuit of The Americas as he continued, "I didn't have enough today, I didn't drive particularly well. It was a tough challenge out there with the tyres and the car, it was a difficult day.

"It's tough when you're on the limit and you're trying your best; tyres are old and hot and it's slidey; it's easy to make mistakes ' those things happen. But, yeah, I didn't do enough today; I didn't drive well enough ' I get that, so I need to make some improvements."

When pushed on whether he could still take the positives from his race result on Sunday given the challenges faced across the event, the 24-year-old reflected, "Yeah, it's tough. I think our only position we could have got today is third, the Ferraris were on another level comparing to us today.

"Difficult to expect a lot more, honestly I think even if I led after Turn 1 I would have finished third at best, so when you look at it like that, I was only one position away from where I should have finished.

"But that one position is probably the most critical because it's against Max. I'm not happy with today at all ' we struggled as a team, I didn't do a great job and both are not what we need right now, so we'll both try better next time."

/IANS