Norris believes his pursuit of perfection is holding him back

Lando Norris believes he has been putting too much pressure on himself this season and needs to trust his speed more heading into this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix.

Oscar Piastri took the championship lead with his third victory in four races in Saudi Arabia, with Norris crashing in qualifying and recovering from tenth on the grid to finish fourth. That followed a third-place finish in Bahrain that came after another disappointing qualifying performance, and Norris says his pursuit of perfection is a personal approach that might need tweaking.

“I’m probably putting a bit too much pressure on myself at the minute, not because of any reason, and not because of the championship and all these things,” Norris is quoted as saying by the official F1 website. “I just put too much pressure on myself because I want to do well – like I want to do so well.

“I want to be on pole, I want to win, I want to be perfect. I think I need to accept a little bit more that I’m not going to be perfect, and I’m making mistakes because I’m trying to be perfect, rather than the other way around.

“I think I just need to chill out a little bit and have a bit more trust in my speed, because my speed , and my speed in every race this season, has been, I think, the best. I’m very confident that I can win the races if I just give myself a better chance on Saturday.”

Although admitting his recent performances might have been impacted by his own high expectations, Norris says he has been improving in terms of being able to turn that pressure into a positive.

“I’ve always been very hard on myself, because I’ve never been hard on anyone else… I’ve never been hard on my team, my mechanics, the car, the setup. I’ve always worked on myself more than I’ve ever blamed anyone, and that’s just made me into the person that I am.

“I think there are pros and cons of that kind of mentality… A lot of it has been good, because it makes me work on myself, and I think I’m very good at understanding myself and figuring out why this was good and that wasn’t good, but there’s the negative side of sometimes being too negative on yourself, and kind of getting into that bad little world.

“I’ve learned to utilize it in a good way, and especially over the last half a year, year, I’ve tried to optimize it and use it in terms of making me better – rather than use it, acknowledge it and let it affect me in a negative way. It’s more how can you turn it into something positive? That’s something I’ve not been good at until the last year or so.

“In both aspects of my life – F1 life and also at home – I feel like I’m in the best position that I’ve been. I know that I’m going to make mistakes, and I’m going to let myself down, but I’m excited and confident that I can go out and do a good job every weekend.”