After a difficult Grand Prix in Bahrain, where he still signed a third place, Lando Norris admitted to having taken advantage of the past few days for “escape a little of his reality”. The McLaren driver is in trouble driving his MCL39, which no longer seems to be suitable for his piloting style. A situation all the more difficult when you know that his teammate, Oscar Piastri, is in the form of his life.
But, despite these problems, Norris is the most regular pilot of this start to the season. He is the only one to have finished on the podium during each Grand Prix this year – the only exception being the race sprint in China – and remains the current leader in the championship. A small consolation batch for the British.
“I needed a few days of rest. I said that I needed a reset, I would probably have liked a few more days in total, but I drew the best party from my three days of relaxation, moving away from reality”he said.
“But at the same time, I think that in the minds of each athlete and each pilot, even if we try to take a step back, we always think of a lot of things. I know that I could have been better, but to be at the top of the championship when I was not happy, that I did not feel comfortable in the car, it is a beginning of the year that I would have dreamed before the start of the season.”
“I think I tried to remember the positive points, and there have been a lot, but there are still a lot of me, and I tried to understand the problems, the struggles, the reasoning behind all this, which is the most difficult thing is to try to find the answers to these things. I think we are on the right track.”
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo de: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Norris therefore tackles his weekend in Djeddah with the objective of rectifying what is possible to be, as vague these corrections be. The Briton remains aware of the long season that stretches in front of him, convinced that his work will necessarily bear fruit at a time of the year.
“I try to improve myself in some of these areas”he explained. “It is therefore not as if I arrived this weekend by being full of confidence and knowing that things will work out. I always think that there are things with which I am going to have trouble because certain things cannot be changed at the moment.”
“There are things that I can perhaps reconsider from the point of view of the approach, from the point of view of the style of piloting. Things that I probably never had to think before, because it is not my usual way of driving or thinking. And then I leave from there.”
“So it’s also a weekend when I want to be efficient, I want to do, but it’s still the start of the season, so if I can try to work on certain things here and improve in certain areas, it will bear fruit in the long term.”
-This is how Norris explains the difference between his performances in qualifying in 2024, where he had won eight pole positions on the season, and those of this year: the lack of sensations and the unpredictability of the behavior of the car.
“I know I can be much better and perform at a much higher level than I do now”he said. “My level of confidence was very high at the end of last season, for the simple reason that I understood the car, that I understood how to pilot it and that I could perform things to perfection.”
“Today, I cannot, simply because my sensations are not there and my way of piloting is not at all suitable. I hate not being able to know how I will behave during a qualifying tour. Last year, if you had asked me if I was confident when approaching qualifications, I would have been much more inclined to respond in the affirmative that today.
