While he has had the best car in the field for a long time, Lando Norris may not have made the best use of it.
It is not enough to have the best car to win the crown of World Champion among drivers.
Certainly, McLaren, whose MCL38 is the best machine on the field, will probably be crowned among the constructors, but its lead over Ferrari has been melting like snow in the sun for a few races. Why then?
Too many errors recently
As shown in the table below (which shows the pure speed performances of the top three teams), Red Bull had the fastest car until Emilia-Romagna. Starting from Monaco, out of the fourteen Grands Prix contested to date, McLaren has had the fastest car eight times, compared to three for Ferrari and three for Red Bull.
And over the last six races, we observe that the MCL38 has been the fastest four times and the Ferrari only two. However, over these six rounds, Maranello only lost fifteen points on Woking. Which means that the Prancing Horse makes better use of its car, while the British team accumulates blunders.
82 points lost?
Our colleagues on the site RaceFans have compiled a systematic list of errors and points lost by Norris and McLaren since the start of the season. Here is a summary:
- Bahrain: Norris loses 4 points
- Saudi Arabia: Norris loses 8 points
- Chine sprint : Norris perd 4 points
- Miami sprint : Norris perd 3 points
- Monaco : Norris perd 6 points
- Canada: Norris loses 14 points (strategic error by the team)
- Spain: Norris loses 7 points
- Austria sprint: Norris loses 2 points
- Austria race: Norris loses 18 points (bad luck)
- England: Norris loses 10 points (strategic error by the team)
- Hungary: Norris loses 7 points
- Belgium: Norris loses 8 points
- Italy: Norris loses 3 points
- Azerbaijan: Norris loses 13 points (bad luck)
- USA : Norris perd 3 points
- Brazil: Norris loses 17 points
Norris may be driving the best car in the field, but he made a bunch of mistakes recently, which cost him around 82 points according to calculations by RaceFans. Before the Brazilian Grand Prix, the points lost had been due either to bad luck (his collision with Verstappen in Austria cost him 18 points, but this deficit could have affected the Dutchman), or to tactical errors (17 points due to poor tactical decisions by the team in Montreal and Silverstone).
A certain lack of confidence… which is explained
Regarding these strategic blunders, it must be recognized that Norris seems quite passive in the way he handles key decisions with his engineers, without ever frankly making a decision himself – the opposite of Verstappen who discusses and argues each choice, sometimes vehemently. A bit as if Lando, aware that he has points to make up, was being excessively cautious.
If he had not fallen so far behind in the first rounds, perhaps he would have been more decisive in his choices. He is certainly only 25 years old but 125 Grands Prix to his credit. His caution in confrontations with Max-the-threat probably comes from the fact that he knows that he has more to lose by making contact, and his opponent is taking advantage of this.
In short, his lack of confidence at certain key moments, which can be explained by his deficit in points, played bad tricks on him, especially against a driver as implacable as Verstappen.
Likewise, his poor start made his task difficult. Okay, his reaction time is generally better than Verstappen's, okay, the Red Bull is a rocket at the start on low grip tracks, etc., but still. His teammate Oscar Piastri gained places during the first lap, which almost never happened to Norris.
However, this analysis must be qualified. Piastri, sometimes more incisive, has “free” weekends, while Norris is very regular. In terms of operations and strategy, McLaren is not at the level of Red Bull, far from it. And his opponent is undoubtedly the best current driver and still has a very competitive car. If Mercedes and Hamilton chained together the crowns between 2014 and 2020, it is also because Red Bull was technically very inferior at that time.
We can bet that the Norris will learn from its disappointments – as we have already seen during its last wheel-to-wheel confrontations with its friend Max…
