The Englishman acknowledged that strategy calls played a role, especially the decision to stay out on slicks at the original start.
However, he insisted that the MCL60 simply wasn’t as competitive on Sunday as it was in qualifying, citing the comparison with rivals Aston Martin and Mercedes as “terrible”.
“There are times when it's down to pace and times when it's down to strategy, and the strategy is what messed us up,” he said.
“I don't think the pace is bad, the pace was okay. Not good enough, if you want to say what was our pace compared to Aston's? It was pretty terrible. Compared to Mercedes? Pretty terrible.
“So our pace was a long way off the pace that we showed in qualifying. And our one-lap is still a lot more competitive than our race pace.
“I think that's becoming more and more evident. And we're doing whatever we can to fix it and make steps forward, but at the minute it's nowhere near enough."
Norris was adamant that McLaren made the wrong call by not pitting him for intermediates as rain fell at the start of the race.
Source: Autosport