Lando Norris says he doesn’t perceive how he’s nonetheless main the drivers’ championship after struggling a lot together with his McLaren, however is assured he’ll carry out at his greatest once more as soon as he finds options.
Oscar Piastri’s victory within the Bahrain Grand Prix closed him to inside three factors of Norris on the prime of the standings, with Max Verstappen slipping again to 3rd place total and eight factors off the lead. Norris completed third on Sunday behind Piastri and George Russell, and mentioned he doesn’t take the positives out of his championship place as he focuses on attempting to get comfy throughout the MCL39.
“That’s not how I feel,” Norris mentioned of retaining his lead. “It in all probability needs to be how I feel, nevertheless it’s not how I feel. To complete third, to get some extra factors on the board, to maintain the championship and simply my race alive was an excellent factor, however I’m not blissful in regards to the consequence.
“Third’s not horrendous. I feel the most effective I might have completed is second. I simply made my life too troublesome with too many errors with the beginning, with the [Lewis] Hamilton factor. So, I’m shocked. Everybody says I’m main the championship, I don’t know the way on the minute! So I’m fairly shocked.
“I simply must hold my head down and hold working arduous as a result of I’m not assured, I’m not comfy, and I do know what I can do. I do know what I can obtain. It’s not gone, I’ve not misplaced it. It’s simply issues aren’t clicking and I must one way or the other look into why they’re not clicking, nevertheless it’s not proving to be too straightforward.”
Norris says he has a couple of completely different avenues to discover this weekend in Saudi Arabia in relation to his qualifying tempo, believing that’s the place the foundation of his issues are to be discovered.
“I feel my race tempo is okay. My race tempo is sweet. It’s clearly a bit extra my qualifying. I went via so much [on Saturday] night time. I left late. I spent numerous time attempting to look into what occurred, why I struggled a lot, why I’m not feeling assured.
“I assume we form of narrowed down to a couple issues, not perhaps clear solutions and definitive solutions, however a couple of causes of why perhaps I’ve been struggling a bit extra right here and there with my qualifyings and the tempo and stuff.
“However I do know what I’m able to doing. I do know I can exit and get poles and I can win races by good margins. However one thing’s not simply doing what it ought to, and I don’t know what that’s. I must get again dwelling and get working with my crew and see what we will uncover.”
