Norris: McLaren car advantage is bailing me out right now
Lando Norris says McLaren's performance advantage is masking the full extent of his confidence issues with the team's 2025 F1 car
Lando Norris says McLaren’s performance advantage is masking the full extent of his missing confidence in the team's 2025 Formula 1 car.
Norris was highly self-critical of the qualifying lap left him sixth on the grid for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday, and he wasn’t that impressed with his scrappy recovery to third on Sunday via a penalty for being out of position on the grid.
“I qualified sixth which is pretty terrible. So how can I possibly be happy? That just doesn’t make sense,” Norris said after the race.
“Of course, I’m a little bit happier today that I managed to get back to P3. I had a good start, all those things. I think P2 is the best we could have achieved, it’s what we should have achieved.
“But we didn’t and I didn’t because of some mistakes. Mixed feelings; the car is obviously mega as Oscar [Piastri, his race-winning team-mate] showed. Just too many mistakes.”
One of those mistakes was the gridbox error. “I was too far back so I tried to creep forward and I did the opposite,” Norris explained.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever done this in my life, shouldn’t happen but it did and I paid the price for it.”
That mistake started a cascade of troubles that compromised Norris's race.
“I was happy with a good opening lap, aggressive and attacking, which I needed to be but I got the penalty and everything got a lot worse,” Norris explained.
“So I had the penalty, boxed earlier than everyone else, had to push more to try and make up five seconds. Just about made it up but then I’m on much older tyres and I kind of paid the price for that again.
“Just every time I did one thing good, I did two things bad. I just kept stopping myself from making as much progress as I should have done today.
“I’m happy pace was there, difficult to overtake, dirty air is just horrible. Happier with my pace today, but still not the best feeling with the car at the minute.”
'It's helping me out of a lot of problems'
Norris admitted something just isn’t clicking with the McLaren right now, and he argued the superiority of the MCL39 is allowing him to mostly get away with it.
“When you’re an athlete, when you’re a driver, you just know when things click. When you feel confident, when you feel comfortable,” Norris said.
“I’m confident that I have everything I need and I’ve got what it takes. I have no doubt about that, that I’m good enough and all of those things.
“But something is just not clicking with me in the car. I’m not able to do any of the laps like I was doing last season. There I knew every single corner, everything that was going to happen with the car. How it was going to happen. I felt on top of the car.
“This year could have not felt more opposite so far. Even in Australia where I won the race but never felt comfortable, never felt confident, the car was just mega and that’s helping me get out of a lot of problems at the minute.
“I’m just nowhere near the capability that I have, which hurts to say. I’ve spent a lot of time, even last night, I left late last night to look into everything and understand what I’m struggling with and what’s not clicking. Trying to figure out what’s changed from last year to this year. Is it me or is it some of the car?
“It’s complicated. I’m not doubting myself, even though sometimes it may seem like that. It’s just something is not gelling. Something is not clicking. Therefore I don’t feel comfortable when I’m in the car. I’m confident, I know I’ve got what it takes. But just not confident.
“And when you’re not confident in the car to know what the limit is, what to do in the slow-speed, high-speed corners, I'm never going to be as quick as I need to be, especially when you’re fighting the best in the world.”
The contrast with team-mate Piastri is clear, as he has been more confident across four tracks that he was weaker at than Norris during 2024.
“This weekend I felt comfortable with it,” Piastri replied when asked if he was clicking with the car.
“There have been times when it’s been tricky but I would say for the most part, I’ve been pretty happy with the car to be honest. Clearly it’s got a lot of pace.
“Kind of known from pre-season testing that there’s some things we want to iron out but I think we’ve done a very good job of doing that and I’ve been comfortable, especially this weekend in what the car is able to do.”
Does Norris beat himself up too much?
As ever, points leader Norris faced questions about whether he’s beating himself up for his mistakes too much, such as after his tricky Bahrain qualifying.
He said it’s just the way he is and finds it useful to release the frustration of making the errors.
“I think it would be even harder for me to not show any of these things,” Norris said.
“When I do my interviews and whatever, a lot of it is probably just getting my frustration out. It’s just because of not achieving what I want to achieve.
“It’s because of my desire to do well and my ambition to win. When I know what I can do and what I’m capable of, and I’m not even close to reaching that - like yesterday - I’m very disappointed in myself.
“That’s just the way I am. I’m just so hungry to win and I work so hard to win. When it doesn’t go my way, and when I mess up myself, then I’m very disappointed in myself. But during the interviews and saying things I do, I don’t think necessarily have a bad impact on myself negatively.
“I’ve done it so much my whole life, I’ve learned how to block my own comments away from my thoughts. Maybe sometimes I lack a bit of self-belief, and I have done in the past. But this is just also me. It’s the way I do things, it’s the way I work, it’s what has made me as good as I am, and probably maybe at times has limited me from becoming a better driver.
“But, like I said, I know what I can do and I’m happy. I think what I can do and what I can achieve is good enough and easily up there with the best. So I just need to get back in that rhythm.
“And yes, maybe sometimes I’m too hard on myself - like yesterday. But I came back today after a nice sleep, re-energised, new day and good to go again and put up a good fight, which I felt like I kind of did.
“So, this was one day. Today was a new day, and I have a few days off now to recover and go again.”
Team boss Andrea Stella highlighted Norris's unique openness and pointed out it takes some of the pressure away from the team being partly responsible for Norris’s discomfort with the MCL39.
“I’ve seen various multiple world champions, that when there is a situation whereby you’d want to do something with the car but the car doesn’t do exactly what you’d like, are they completely comfortable? They aren’t. It is an uncomfortable situation,” Stella explained.
“But the way Lando is navigating through this situation, from a substantial view, is the same as other world champions I’ve seen in the past.
“It’s there where he is relatively unique in how open he is. Somehow he makes it visible. When you hear the post-qualifying interview, he was quite self-critical. I know other world champions in the past would be much more about, ‘The problem is somewhere else’.
“And there’s something important here which is something I admire of Lando and makes me very privileged and lucky as a team principal, that he tends to absorb and point the blame on himself. Like yesterday he knew didn’t put the lap together, he raises his hand, offloading entirely the team, ‘You guys, not your problem, it was me’. Which is inaccurate because we know we have made some changes to the car which made Lando’s life a bit more difficult.
“We know technically what this is, Lando is adapting to this, somehow potentially played more into Oscar’s hands, and we’re working together to fix it.
“I think there are some drivers who as soon as there is a problem, ‘[It’s] the team!’ and the finger is going to the team and this is not healthy. This is not something on which you build.
“When we judge a driver, we should consider these aspects, certainly for me as a team principal, they are so important to keep building, otherwise you introduce, if there’s internal conflict, even if you have potential.
“You know what happens? You don’t use the potential because all of your energy goes into internal fighting, drivers against the team, the pressure of the races. Rather than just focusing on performance.”
