Lando Norris says he must calm down his approach to qualifying to avoid compromising his race weekends.
The McLaren driver climbed six places to finish fourth in today’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after crashing heavily in Q3 yesterday. Norris was pleased with his performance in the race but admitted he left himself with too much to do on Sunday after another poor Saturday.
“I’ve been very confident in my races,” he told the official F1 channel. “It’s my quali, it’s my Saturdays which are not good enough at the minute. My one-lap pace.
“That’s because, like I’ve said before, I’m struggling a little bit with the car.”
Norris was consistently quick through practice and qualifying until Q3 yesterday, when he crashed on his first timed run.
“Yesterday was not the car, that was just me trying to take too many risks,” he said. “So I’ve just got to get it back.
“Clearly I’ve got the pace and it’s all in there. Sometimes I try and ask for a bit too much and sometimes I get a bit too eager for a little bit more and want to put the most perfect lap together and I just need to chill out a little. A little break would be nice and I’ll come back even stronger.”
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While his team mate Oscar Piastri won ahead of Max Verstappen, Norris finished just one second behind Charles Leclerc in third place. He doesn’t believe he could have done any better.
“I think it was the best we could achieve today,” said Norris. “Clearly, we’re not head and shoulders above the rest.
“As Oscar showed, it was not an easy race. Max probably would have won if he didn’t have the penalty, we’ve got these kinds of issues, still. It’s not easy races which just means when I make mistakes, like yesterday, like in some other races, because I’m just not getting it [right] as much as I need to, then I make my life pretty tough.
“I’m still happy with my comeback today, it’s the best I could achieve and now I’m looking forward to our break.”
Norris said his race to fourth had been “flat out” from the start. “There’s no saving on the tyres here, it’s flat-out from start to finish.
“So I was struggling, not in terms of physically, but just struggling to have enough of an advantage over the rest to come back through as much as I wanted.”
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