Lando Norris has expanded on his recent qualifying struggles and how he is trying to solve it by doing things differently.
It is not often for a driver top open up about his struggles even when relatively you are doing well on the public front. McLaren’s Norris has does so when speaking about the issues he has been facing on the qualifying front since last year.
On the race side, Norris has been pretty solid whether it is taking on his rivals or beating his teammate Oscar Piastri. But on qualifying side, the Brit has had some troubles where he has lost positions costing him valuable spot and forcing him to recover.
That issue has continued into 2024 where he finally explained what he is going through. It stems from the changing behaviour of the car and also the tyres. Due to the narrow window of everything clicking together, he is struggling to adapt to that.
The constant evolution has caught him in two minds and so when he does one thing, there is a second thing which irks him. From how he was driving the car a few years ago, things has changed and the adaption has taken more time than expected.
Here’s at length how Norris explains –
Qualifying struggle –
Norris: “An understanding of the car, there’s still things, which I’m learning now, things are always changing. Yes, it’s a McLaren, but there are certain things that takes time to pick up on, but everything else is still changing around it, we’re slowly tweaking the aerodynamics over the years and you still have to adapt quite a bit to those characteristics, and there’s still things even over the last couple of weeks I’ve learnt about quite a bit, like in qualifying. I’ve always been wanting to push quite a bit more in certain areas and kind of want to go out and just be attacking and I have to do the complete opposite. It’s a hard one to get my head around because, I want to go out and find another limit in qualifying, and I just can’t do that with these tyres, and with our car.
“You almost have to drive it the opposite way. From being used to the cars a few years ago that’s kind of punishing me, now and also not adapting quick enough, but that’s something that’s up to me. That’s my job to adapt, and to do a better job, but also just with how our car is, how you have to drive it, it’s always been said and it continues to be quite a tricky car to drive. So, to execute a perfect qualifying lap every single time, is not an easy thing to do and that’s also like we said something we’re working on.”
New thing or a different thing that you have to adapt –
Norris: “No, I would say it’s a bit more of a different one, but still like if you ask me now how do I drive in low speed corners, I’ve got no idea. Like one day, it’s like this and the next day it’s like that, I struggle with it. Just with the confidence of knowing exactly how to improve in all cases, when it does click, it clicks, and I can have a good quali, but I just lost a little bit of that feeling over the last couple of years. I think kind of going out in quali, and attacking and putting in the laps that I want to put in, and it’s hard to make myself not push and not be attacking when you’re competitive and you want to go for a better lap so, a combination of things we’ve always dealt with, and I think every weekend you have to adapt and kind of find the new limitations, and the new problems. Secondly, just adapting to the changes of the car and trying to improve my driving.”
Linked to last year quali scene –
Norris: “Yeah, but it’s like I can’t even drive at 100%, you know 100% works one lap in 10. So, when you want to go into Q3 and put your best lap in. It might be that one lap is you have to drive at 98%. You know, so it’s just a complicated thing and it’s difficult to be on the limit depending on a couple of kilometres an hour of wind, or you know, the tyres are a bit harder or a bit colder like it changes how much you’re able to push in every single corner. So, you have to think of these things – okay the wind’s changed this little amount it means I have to brake one metre earlier it means that I have to do this and it just isn’t an easy thing to be on top of. So yeah, it’s stuff I’m working on it’s stuff I think I’ve improved a bit over the last couple of weeks. I think last weekend [in Australia] was a bit more of the indication. The first indication of okay when it clicks, this is what we can kind of do but it’s still not easy to achieve.”
Comes from trial and error or how –
Norris: “It’s trial and error of just trying to make that a normality. The thing is, when you drive or when I drive. I drive so subconsciously like the less I think of driving the better I drive, so if I just go out and I’m watching the grandstands this is normally when I’m doing a better job. But I’m naturally just going out and pushing, so when I have to try and change your subconscious and try just to chill, it’s not an easy thing to change that’s something that just gets developed over the years. It’s not easy to just revert on. So, I think it’s just drifted away from me probably over the last year, and a bit, with the older regulations it was easier to drive and to find the limit.
“With these new cars and new tyres. I mean say it’s new it’s only three years old, but yeah, it’s still the same issues and still learning things you know, so yeah every day is a new day there’s always new challenges and new issues, but that’s part of it. it’s the same for everyone I just think at times it’s a bit tricky without a car and so yeah my job as a driver to do the best I can on adapting to it myself as well.”
Can be solved on sim –
Norris: “It’s something I’ve been working on quite a bit on the simulator, so it’s tough because not always is it the best correlation with certain techniques and abilities and trying to drive relaxed those are the kind of things you can do on the simulator, but recreating that exact emotion of when you’re in the car and you’re going for a quali lap. It’s not easy to replicate such a thing on a simulator you know but yeah the techniques and certain approaches to corners and just general things that I need to improve in my driving anyway in like comparing to Oscar then that’s also stuff. I can try.”
Here’s Lando Norris on team reviewing Japanese GP
Here’s Oscar Piastri on clash with George Russell and Fernando Alonso’s tactics
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