Lando Norris accepted full blame for the collision with Lewis Hamilton which ruined his chances of a dream podium.
McLaren have started the season in underwhelming fashion and have been a long way off scoring big points so far. But there was hope that might change at the Spanish Grand Prix after an excellent qualifying session which saw Norris secure the third grid slot all for himself.
Race pace has been an issue for McLaren so the chances of him holding onto a podium position were slim. And whatever hopes he did have of doing so were dashed almost immediately as he lost a chunk of his front wing in a collision with Hamilton's Mercedes.
Norris had to pit at the end of that first lap for a replacement, but his hopes of a strong result had already vanished. He spent the rest of the race trundling around at the back of the pack and looked thoroughly miserable about it as he faced the media.
He did admit, though, that it was his own mistake which did the damage. "I didn't see that the Red Bull went off ahead of me and, because of that, I thought there would be normal pace around him too and everyone just checked up massively," he said.
"So, just unlucky in my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong, but just misjudgement from my part because I couldn't see the car ahead that had gone off, so unlucky, I think. But at the same time, we wouldn't have had the pace to finish in the points anyway.
"Difficult afternoon, but as expected – P3 made us look amazing yesterday and we weren't confident in finishing in the points. I guess you always say, 'I could have done this, could have done that'. But, at the time, I tried to get across, I still had some slipstream from the car ahead.
"At the same time, everyone went right, so maybe didn't get the best of launches. Not too many excuses, to be honest. Just maybe could have fought Lewis more on Turn 1, but at the same time, he was pretty committed and I probably would have ended up off the track.
"Maybe would have been a safer option just to commit to going off – but like I said, I think just a bit unlucky. So, nothing more than that. It just happens, but it didn't change our day."
