Lando Norris under investigation by F1 bosses after huge McLaren howler in Miami

Lando Norris has been placed under investigation by the FIA stewards at this weekend's Miami Grand Prix. The British star is in hot water after his McLaren team left a torch and a wrench in his driver's cockpit for the first Free Practice session and allowed him to drive away.

Norris is chasing his first championship title, though current trails team-mate Oscar Piastri by 10 points in the standings. The 25-year-old endured a rough time of it at the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix a fortnight ago.

He suffered a major crash in qualifying which forced him into recovery mode and he could only manage a fourth place finish in the race, as Piastri won. Norris is hoping to take back control of the title race this weekend in Florida.

But it was a nightmare start for the Brit after an incident just seconds into the first practice session. While on his first lap, Norris came over team radio to report an issue.

He said: "Yeah, there's just, you've left so many tools in the cockpit, everything's just falling apart. I'll have to box this lap."

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No reply from his race engineer Will Joseph was broadcast on . But Norris did indeed pull into the pits, where he placed a torch and a wrench onto the body of his car.

The stewards quickly confirmed they had noted McLaren and Norris for releasing the car in an 'unsafe condition' with an investigation to follow after the session. According to Sky Sports, if found guilty, McLaren are in line for a fine.

Norris has not won a race since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix back in March. And on Thursday the McLaren star admitted he needed a 'clean weekend' to get his title charge back on track.

“We feel good and we feel confident that we’re the best, but the others are certainly not far behind and consistently putting pressure on us, so one little mistake and we’re behind and we’re not where we want to be.

“Otherwise it’s just another weekend; it’s another weekend where we’re trying to improve, others are trying to improve [to] try and get ahead of us. So, yeah, just making sure I have a good weekend and a clean weekend, that’s the main thing.

“I’m working on my things, I’m working on what to improve and trying to figure out all the things behind the scenes on what I need to do better on.

“It’s certainly not because of a lack of speed or lack of ability to do so – I’ve often led the way in Q1 and Q2, but always when I got to Q3 then it’s not gone to plan. I think there’s stuff from the driving side and other things from the car side where just things haven’t clicked, but I’m working on it and hopefully this weekend I put it into practice.”