Lando Norris admits he’s at a loss to understand why he has been less competitive in qualifying this year.
He out-qualified his team mate in 20 out of 24 rounds last year. But following the first seven rounds this year, Norris is trailing 4-3 against Oscar Piastri.Despite qualifying fourth at Imola, Norris finished ahead of Piastri, who started from pole position. But Norris said he needs to concentrate on where he is missing out in qualifying.
“I just know that I can do more,” he told Channel 4. “Until I’m delivering my potential every weekend then I’m not going to be over the moon.
“I’m confident, I know what I can achieve, I know that I’ve got the speed, I’m not worried about any of that. I’m just worried about delivering it when it needs to be delivered. And that’s on Saturdays at the minute.”
Norris has never lost a qualifying battle to a team mate over a season in F1. “Over the past few years, Saturdays have been mine,” he acknowledged. “They’ve been my strength for many, many years.
“This year, with the car changing a little bit, with the tyres changing, for some reason it’s drifted away from me. I’ve got to work it out – and it’s taken time and it’ll take more time – why it’s a little bit more tricky for me to get the lap time out of it and why it’s just not clicking and why I’m just not seeing green [sectors] as often.”
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He took some consolation from his recovery to second place in the last two rounds. “Some difficulties, some things are not easy at the minute. But when you have a Sunday like [Imola], when you have Sundays like Miami and things where you can come back through and you show that you’ve got good pace, they’re always reassuring.
“So I’m not worried about my speed. I’m just taking a bit of time to understand why my Saturdays are not coming through.”
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2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
- Antonelli was tiring from home race at Imola attention by Friday – Wolff
- Ferrari struggling to recreate set-up which “worked well” in Shanghai – Hamilton
- Verstappen told Red Bull to use Tsunoda before “hold him up” call
- ‘Saturdays have been mine for years but for some reason it’s drifted away’ – Norris
- “Plan C?”: Why McLaren only got their strategy right for one driver at Imola
XM (@xmf1)
21st May 2025, 7:48
It’s either
A – He’s never had a proper strong teammate
B – He feels the pressure and keeps choking
C – He’s been over hyped all this time
D – Some or all of the above
MacLeod (@macleod)
21st May 2025, 8:07
Or E – Oscar became beter?
Applebook
21st May 2025, 16:27
This. To say that Ricciardo half a decade ago and Sainz are bad teammates is absurd. Oscar has improved and has simply taken his game up to a new level and is better. He’s making fewer mistakes, while Lando cannot get away with making small mistakes in qualifying anymore. Even when he was dominating Oscar in qualifying, he still made a lot of tiny errors but got away with them because Oscar was simply not that fast. The margins between these two are not enormous though. When both guys get in clean laps, the gap is under a tenth on most tracks.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd May 2025, 4:30
Yes, I think piastri improving is more likely, I didn’t expect it cause usually top drivers are fast from the start, but he seems to have made a significant step up compared to last year.
BasCB (@bascb)
21st May 2025, 9:05
What about for one, yes as MacLeod mentions, Piastri has stepped up and at the same time, it does seem that this year it is even more tricky to get things right – we have seen many drivers get things right one lap and miss out by several tenths the next, Piastri has also made mistakes in qualifying, be it clearly less than Norris so far, so what if what Lando mentions IS actually true? Sure, what you mention under B has been something he seems to struggle with at times too.
XM (@xmf1)
21st May 2025, 10:40
I feel each driver should get better every year, much like the engineering and their cars as well. You don’t get better, you’re moving backwards, as they say. I feel that not having strong teammates have left him complacent. Max has also had the same situation where he didn’t have strong teammates but he was fighting Lewis, Charles, throughout his time, so he was forced to get better. Whereas the McLaren was up and down so often, Lando really had varying goals through his career.
BasCB (@bascb)
21st May 2025, 16:10
You don’t think being up to Max (and fighting on track with the likes of Lewis, Charles, George, Fernando) would do the same for Norris as it did for Max then?
BTW. this is not about “not improving” but about running into issues in a specific thing – making sure to nail qualifying laps.
XM (@xmf1)
22nd May 2025, 7:59
It’s only in recent times that Lando has been running ahead. Max has been at in for much longer
Ferdi
21st May 2025, 9:54
It sounds like complacency or false sense of entitlement is his issue here. I understood he was raised rather silver spoonish.. might not have delivered the right mental mindset.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
21st May 2025, 11:26
Not been over hyped by himself and that will effect his performance more than what you read on Planet f1
MichaelN
21st May 2025, 12:44
Norris has indeed been overhyped, but that was more so a few years ago and based on him beating Ricciardo and taking podiums while people still had a view of McLaren that lagged reality. This is happening now with Williams, where people underestimate how good their car is, and overstate the performance of their drivers.
But Piastri has been at McLaren in 2023 and 2024, and in both cases he wasn’t at the same level Norris was. Was Piastri not a proper and strong teammate then? Not really. It’s all in the details.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
21st May 2025, 13:21
They co-exist A good driver feeds back good information to make an average car better. People underestimate this co-dependant relationship and then start arguing if its the jockey or the horse. Its both as it has ever been and until you speak to someone new to the sport you forget you have to keep saying it
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
21st May 2025, 17:52
I certainly agree on the williams part. That car in my view is at least as good as it was in 2015 / 2016. And there are in my view just two teams that are clearly better, that being McLaren and Verstappen in his Red Bull. The Ferrari’s and Mercedes I woould go as far as saying are only a match because of the drivers. Sainz has not been very good this season, but once he is back to how he was, that car is now capable of podiums like Bottas and Massa managed back in the years I mentioned. They had Mercedes and Ferrari as the cars that were clearly better back then, and Force India as pretty close rivals so the situation is similar.
I just feel that as williams has progressed so much this season that it is really flattering Albon. I think he’s recovered well from his Red Bull days but is average at best. Sainz I have a lot more hope for, but given he’s got less points than Stroll who is in amongst the worst car, he’s really doing poorly this season.
Femke
22nd May 2025, 7:25
Or F – the car is made to suit his teammates drivingstyle better than his
XM (@xmf1)
22nd May 2025, 8:03
A driver’s job is to adjust their driving to bring out the full potential of their car. All this “suit this particular driver’s style” talk is just a cover up for a driver’s failings.
Look at Sainz this year, look at Hamilton. Lewis has adapted faster to the Ferrari despite being in the Merc for years and years. And Carlos is struggling in the Williams despite racing for numerous other teams. Look at Yuki, even. He might not be top drawer but even he is getting to terms with the RB surprisingly quickly for a car that they say is crazy difficult to drive.
Biskit Boy (@sean-p-newmanlive-co-uk)
21st May 2025, 8:50
Confidence is the key. He’s making more mistakes than Oscar.
I think Lando is one good sports phycologist away from World Champion.
Applebook
21st May 2025, 16:30
Lando has to he perfect to beat Oscar. When he is perfect, he is right there, but even when Lando was dusting off his previous teammates, he still consistently made tiny errors. Can he get it together and be cleaner? It’s all in his head. The gap between him and Oscar isn’t big, but Oscar is the new ice man. He has a stronger head.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
21st May 2025, 10:08
Seems to me that the more the pressure grows on him, the more he over-compensates and gets stressed out, which of course leads to more mistakes.
I think that Biskit Boy above may have a good point in that a sports psycho might help.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
21st May 2025, 11:28
As far as im aware he’s still in the championship, too many people trying to write him off because he’s not winning every race. But as Alonso found out n 2007, however good you are the next Generation are coming and sometimes they’re in the same car and then its going to be really tough, whoever you are.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
21st May 2025, 12:31
I don’t think he can do anymore, I think this is his level. In the past, he’s qualifying against Sainz, Ricciardo and rookie Piastri – who at the time he certainly had the edge over. But I think it’s reasonable to say Piastri’s stepped up his game from last year and I think Norris had maybe got a little complacent in that area, so he no longer has that edge. He’s got to actually work harder to stay ahead than he used to. I still think Norris might be ever so slightly more efficient in the race than Piastri but much of that’s simply experience. I’m interested to see how good Piastri can truly get if he holds this upward curve, as just judging from the races this year I think it’s fair to say Piastri would absolutely deserve the title.
Edvaldo
21st May 2025, 23:20
Nothing changed other than Piastri stepping up. Norris has always been error-prone. Just remember he should’ve been pole in Imola in 2021 already but messed the exit in Variante Alta. Messed the final sector in Miami too, two weeks ago, and many other examples.
Now Piastri has caught his speed and makes many fewer mistakes. That’s it. It’s Norris turn to evolve now.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
22nd May 2025, 17:33
Piastri isn’t stepping up, this year’s tires suite his grid position oriented racing. Where position is king vs scraping together quality tire runs. Piastri has always been faster off the blocks and difficult in qualification, the problem is McLaren don’t have real competition, unless Imola is the beginning of a new tire format that suites RBR/Ferrari.
So if Macca don’t have real competition, the only way to keep the camera guys and liberty happy is to have Lando and Piastri taking points off eachother. And in typical F1 history, one driver is typically suited at the beginning of a season, and the second driver takes the second half, and it all crescendos at the last race, where it can only be the last race because thats the only way to charge for such ridiculous ticket prices.
It’s hollywood, at least it has been for the last few years. Almost strictly. Wolff did the same thing with Hamilton and Rosberg when it was clear nobody could challenge Mercedes.
This is stakeholder capitalism, this is the new formula guys like Wolff are pioneering, based on idol worship, fake dilemmas, narratives, et al. All in the name of selling more and more expensive properties until the top. And we might have already seen the top. Becareful.
Mark (@mrcento)
22nd May 2025, 1:48
I think it’s just as simple as Lando doesn’t quite have the feel for this McLaren with its aggressive anti-dive suspension, and Oscar has improved, plus handles it better.
The result is lack of confidence and over driving into errors under pressure chasing something he can’t blindly trust the car to do like Oscar clearly right now can. Especially evident when it’s balls to the wall in Q3 and they are right on the limit.
I still think that when everything is ‘right’ and laps are clean, Lando is faster over 1 lap. And i’d even argue that in pure race pace, Lando is still just that shade quicker, albeit that is another area Piastri has notably closed the gap in, but the Quali deficit from errors over driving is putting Lando out of position, mixed with just that little bit of hesitancy wheel to wheel and use of tyres having to recover places,. making Oscar, who is nailing it 9 times from 10 right now, too far up the road by the time he can show pace in clear air.
I don’t even think Lando is driving that badly despite his issues with the car, it’s just Oscar has been exceptional, Max is Max pulling rabbits out of hats every week, and the field is so close it doesn’t take much for others, notably Russell, to be able to nip into tiny gap time wise where a small error is a difference shooting for P1 or starting around 4th/5th and being thankful you weren’t another 4 places back.
Yet still only 13 points off P1…