Lando Norris has analyzed his qualifying weakness from last year and “done everything I can” over the winter to make fewer mistakes this season
Lando Norris had the best season of his Formula 1 career last year. However, the McLaren driver still sees deficits on Saturday in particular, which he has been working on over the winter. “Sometimes it’s difficult to improve different things until you’re actually in the car, but I’d say I’ve done everything I can, even if it’s just mental things,” Norris reveals.
“I’m trying to work on every area that I can improve,” says the 24-year-old with determination. Norris finished last season in sixth place in the drivers’ standings with seven podium finishes, just one point behind Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc.
That could possibly have been better if he had made fewer mistakes in qualifying. In Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Brazil, the McLaren driver made mistakes in the third and final part of qualifying. In Mexico, Norris was eliminated in Q1 because his lap time was disallowed for going over the track limits.
“I’m just making so many mistakes on a Saturday at the moment,” said the Briton after the last qualifying session of the year in Abu Dhabi. “Yeah, it’s frustrating because I’m just doing a sh*** job on Saturday.” He therefore used the winter break to analyze and improve his mistakes in the simulator.
“There have already been various things, both in terms of how I drive and how I work on getting the performance out, understanding those characteristics and then putting them to the test in the simulator and trying to improve them,” Norris revealed during the presentation of the MCL38.
Errors will be punished more severely in future
However, it remains to be seen whether this was really useful: “It’s always a different experience until you’re back in the car and under pressure again at that moment,” says Norris. “So it’s hard to know before the first qualifying session of the season how well these things are working and what you need to improve in these areas. “
In addition, the McLaren driver believes that the field is even closer together this year. “The longer you look at the regulations, the tighter it gets, that’s what we normally see,” Norris suspects. And even though last year was dominated by Max Verstappen, the field was particularly close last season. That could intensify this year.
“I’m sure we’ll have a few years of very close races ahead of us,” says Norris. “If you don’t get a perfect lap or don’t do something exactly right, you could sometimes get away with it in the past, but I think you’re going to get away with it less and less. It requires less mistakes, more hard work and learning and perfection to get consistent results. “
