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After his excellent victory in Melbourne, I believed Lando Norris had turned a corner from a tricky 2024. His confidence was up and he drove a superb race in difficult conditions, holding off Max Verstappen at the very end. He looked like a more mature and improved driver. What we have seen since has made me rethink my opinion.
The Bahrain Grand Prix weekend was a perfect example. Norris had trouble in qualifying again, finishing five places and more than four-tenths behind pole man and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri. Although he managed to recover from that to take a podium and retain the championship lead, it was a messy race with numerous errors on his side.
Sloppy grid error
The first mistake came with a five-second time penalty for being out of position on the starting grid, ahead of his box. In that he crept forwards before the start and then tried to move back. It was a strange error and I have no idea how he made it. He has done enough real starts and even more practice starts to circumvent errors like this.
These cars are two-pedal cars, accelerator on the right, brake on the left, so its easy enough to keep your foot lightly on the brake and keep the car stationary. If he was trying to find the clutch bite-point and released the brake pedal at the same time and suddenly the bite point was sharper than he thought, the car could have moved forward. With his experience he should have that covered.
You cannot win a race by being clever on the grid – if that is even what he was trying to do – but you can lose one like that. And that is ultimately what cost him second place and three valuable world championship points. Without the penalty he would have surely finished in second place, not third, possibly avoiding getting embroiled in so many on-track battles.
Questionable race-craft
After that penalty he was battling to make his way through the field and catch Piastri. Again, it is clear that his race-craft needs refining. We saw that when he was battling Max Verstappen at the end of last season. We saw it again at various points in the race when trying to overtake the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in the Mercedes.
There is one thing that seems to characterise his approach in all three incidents: desperation. Of course, overtaking in these cars is not easy by any means. The braking zones are so small these days and the cars so large that the margins for error are tiny. Yet desperation seems to set in too often for Norris.
Unlike other drivers, Norris does not seem to build up to these overtakes and struggles to set up the other drivers. He too often fails to look for the weak point of the car ahead and does not make sure he is in the right position at the right time. Everything seems to happen suddenly, and then he is often left to pick up the pieces after a locked tyre or running wide.
Learning to drive slower to go quicker
In the incident with Hamilton, where he overtook off track and had to give the place back, he has only himself to blame. In Hamilton’s hands that Ferrari was a fair chunk slower than the McLaren on Sunday. It should have been an easy overtake – whether at turn four or somewhere else – but it was not. It all looked rather unplanned and appeared as though Norris was flustered. Exactly the same applies to the amount of time it took to move ahead of Leclerc (botching a move at turn one and locking up) and his failure to overtake Russell, who was on soft tyres that were 23-laps old.
I believe there is a mental element to Norris’s struggles. He can get very down and self-critical but perhaps he just needs to take a step back and refocus. These mistakes may be coming because he is chasing lap time (especially in qualifying) rather than going a tenth or so slower, being more consistent and building up to his final flying lap. Overall I think his poor qualifying was compounded on Sunday with more errors as he tried to chase his team-mate in the distance. There needs to be a change in his approach.
Mental approach
Norris is clearly a very capable driver and has shown that in the last few years. Yet the critical part that he seems to be missing is the last couple of per cent of focus when push comes to shove. That is where he seems to trip over himself. He has a championship-winning car and must stabilise his frustrations.
He needs to think about how he approaches weekends mentally. He should not get flustered by so many things. He has been in the sport long enough now for this not to be the case. It is excusable for a rookie but not for Norris. That currently appears in great contrast to his cool, calm and collected team-mate.
Four Lando Norris mistakes that have raised red flags for me
McLaren driver has ability necessary to be world champion but frustrating errors continue to hold him back from realising full potential