2 weeks Ago By Kevin Garside
This was supposed to be the year of Lando Norris, yet five races in, the championship lead has passed to a McLaren teammate who has won three times to his once. Fastest in every session in Saudi Arabia until he hit the wall at turn five in the final qualifying session, Norris is once again ruing costly errors that are taking the stress out of Oscar Piastri’s weekends.Victory in Miami a year ago, his maiden win in Formula One, launched Norris into Max Verstappen’s rear-view mirrors as a credible title threat.
His return to Florida in a fortnight now feels just as significant if he is to reclaim the upper hand in the intra-McLaren power battle and the title race.McLaren’s winter overhaul has made the car quicker, but the price for that is a more nervous disposition and a sweet spot that is harder to navigate, particularly, in the case of Norris, through the slower corners. For Piastri, the 2025 model has effectively come to him, the balance of the car more suited to his characteristics when it is on the limit.
In other words, the car behaves as he expects it to. Norris, on the other hand, is constantly on edge, the car stubbornly refusing to bend to his will as it did last year.if(window.
adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "inread-hb-ros-inews"}); }“It’s my qualifying, my Saturdays, which are not good enough at the minute,” Norris said.
“That’s because I am struggling a little bit with the car. [Saturday] was not the car, it was just me trying to take too many risks. So I just have to peg it back.
I’ve got the pace. It’s all in there. It’s just sometimes I ask for a bit too much and get a bit too ‘ego’ probably and try to put the perfect lap together.
I just need to chill out a little bit.”Piastri is hard enough to subdue without the gift of own goals. Norris left Bahrain a week ago cursing a poor weekend all-round, qualifying only sixth, incurring a penalty at the start after missing his grid box, and struggling in the slow speed corners.
Though he still managed to scrape a podium place, Piastri took a dominant win.In Jeddah, Piastri showed his racing pedigree off the line, forcing Max Verstappen into a first corner error, and a penalty, from pole that ultimately cost him victory, and executing a stunning pass around the outside of Lewis Hamilton into turn 21 that made a novice out of the seven-time world champion. Hamilton is nowhere near peak Lewis, but even slow Lewis was not expecting to be passed on that part of the track and definitely not in that manner.
Lewis Hamilton didn't make it easy for Lando Norris! #F1 #SaudiArabianGP pic.twitter.com/qD3toyVMpR— Formula 1 (@F1) April 20, 2025Having chinned the wall to take himself out of the pole fight Norris was condemned to start from 10th.
Though he was super quick in getting up to fifth, another mis-judgment, twice failing to make a pass on Hamilton stick before eventually pulling off the move, cost him the chance of a podium.if(window.adverts) { window.
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adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l1"}); }“I make life tough for myself, especially in a race like that,” he said. “It would have been much better, a lot more chilled to just drive at the front.
So I’ve got to help myself out a little bit and have better Saturdays.”Norris certainly has the pace, and the edge over a single lap, but the mental frailty to which he admitted last year in failing to push Verstappen hard enough as the 2024 season reached its climax, is still a factor, it seems. Piastri is a doubt-free zone, not allowing the deficit to Norris over a single lap disturb his equilibrium.
Meanwhile, Norris appears agitated, moaning away in the media pen about the idea that the McLaren holds a significant advantage over its rivals, particularly Red Bull and Ferrari in Saudi. It doesn’t, he claims. “They’re just as quick in quali as in most sessions.
They’re as quick as us in the race. Just because we’re quick in practice people just keep coming out with all this crap. “I think Max was probably the quickest out there today if he didn’t have that five-second penalty.
We have work to do. People keep saying that we’re the best, quicker or blah blah blah. It’s just because we show a bit more pace in practice and we don’t have anything left when it gets to quali.
That’s our way of doing things. People need to recalibrate.”People do, not least Norris.
The damage was done in qualifying, for which he described himself as an idiot. I should be fighting for pole and, especially on a Q1 lap, not taking any silly risks like I seem to have done. I’ve let myself and the team down.
”He at least has a weekend off to reflect on the disappointments of Japan, Bahrain and Saudi and on what he must do to reset the clock. Last year his victory in Miami did not register as a title marker at first, but did prove an early indicator that Red Bull’s dominance would soon be over. A repeat this year might not be sufficient to erase the 10-point deficit to Piastri, but it would restore confidence, and that is absolutely necessary if he is to put both Piastri and a still-rapid Verstappen behind him soonest in 2025.
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