Piastri starts only fourth in Miami – and blames himself for not getting it right
Oscar Piastri has had a brilliant run in recent weeks, but the McLaren F1 ace’s luck ran out in the sprint on Saturday in Miami when the safety car timing tipped the balance in favour of Lando Norris.
A couple of hours later he ended the main qualifying fourth, having lost out to Max Verstappen, Norris and Kimi Antonelli.
Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Subscribed
Afterwards he was brutally honest about the mistakes he’d made in Q3 in the sort of manner that we’ve come accustomed to with his team mate.
“This afternoon was nothing to do with luck,” he said when I asked about the outcome.
“It was just not the level of execution I needed to have in Q3. It’s never a great qualifying session when your best lap is the first lap of Q2. There was quite a bit left on the table, a few mistakes on both laps in Q3 which is a shame.
“Both laps of Q3 I struggled at Turn 1. I think I lost pretty much two-tenths in Turn 1, and then my first lap of Q3 I kind of gained it back a bit through the rest of sector one, and then fell away in the middle.
“The last one I eventually recovered some of it at the end, but it wasn’t enough. So this was nothing to do with preparation. It was just execution of the driving, unfortunately.”
Piastri had no doubts about his potential speed had he got it just right.
“I’m not concerned about the pace I had today,” he said. “It was just that, unfortunately, I didn’t use it when I really needed it. And, yeah, I think after the lap in Q2 I just never quite got back into the same rhythm.
“And that was kind of the difference at the end. So some things to look at, for sure, but I know exactly where it went wrong, which is frustrating. But better than asking some questions.”
At the start of the season many people thought McLaren would be dominant and run away with everything, but it’s not been quite like that, especially over one lap.
Verstappen has had a great run of poles for Red Bull, while Ferrari and Mercedes have taken the top spots in the two sprint events.
In other words McLaren has to enjoy a perfect qualifying session in order to be on top.
“There’s definitely still some things with our car that we want to try and address, and driving it right on the limit is one of them,” said Piastri.
“I think this weekend it has had enough pace to be on pole. It’s just that I’ve not done as good a job as I should have, unfortunately.
“I think it’s always been tight. The gap has always been closed, and potentially our advantage has been a little bit more on Sundays. But I think our picture of where we stand has always been that if we make mistakes, where we’re going to be beaten. And that’s been true through the year.”
It remains to be seen if things will turn around in the Miami race.
“It’s hard to say, honestly, the tires have behaved a bit better than most people have expected, I would say, compared to last year. If it’s hot, that might help us out a little bit, but qualifying is still going to make a massive difference for tomorrow.
“So it’s not going to be easy to make progress, but I’m confident in the car that we’ve got.”
Leclerc crashed before the sprint and could only qualify P8 for the main event
Saturday in Miami turned into a nightmare for Charles Leclerc, with a reconnaissance lap crash robbing him of the chance to start the sprint event.
Even worse for the Ferrari driver after the car was repaired he had a relatively straightforward qualifying session with clean laps that resulted in a humble P8, benchmarking the pace of the SF-25 this weekend.
Meanwhile team mate Lewis Hamilton just missed the Q3 cut, and will start in 12th.
The double frustration for Ferrari was that Leclerc’s crash was an own goal as the team sent both drivers out for their exploratory laps in soaking conditions on intermediate tyres, when others went for full wets.
Hamilton admitted that he’d also had a moment and was lucky to escape his team mate’s fate.
“I’ve watched it quite a few times,” said Leclerc when I asked him about the crash. “Honestly, I can drive around 100 times, and there’s not as much you can do as a driver.
“I think the mistake was in the first place to be out on inter tyres, with those track conditions and this we need to understand what we’ve done wrong as a team.
“I won’t go too deep into that, but obviously, I think this was the main mistake that then cost us a lot. But yeah, obviously that made the whole day a lot more difficult for the mechanics, for me as well not doing as many laps as others, but I don’t feel like I’ve paid the price of it today.”
Leclerc agreed that P8 was as much as the team could expect given the overall lack of pace.
“We’re just not fast enough,” he said. “We’ve got to analyse. There was something strange on our side. I had to change massively, the car, the tools and everything, in order to have kind of a balance I liked. It was very different. So we’ve got to look into it to understand what happened there.”
Asked if the car wasn’t 100 percent after the rebuild he said: “I don’t want to say that for now. The mechanics have done an incredible job putting everything on and to be honest, we’ve changed few things on the cars as well in terms of setup.
“It’s unclear to me whether the set-up changes had had a much bigger impact than what I thought, or whether there’s something off. But this will look tonight.”
Ferrari’s lack of performance is a real concern for a team that can’t afford to be starting in P8, with much now riding on updates expected for Imola and beyond.
“It is frustrating. But to be honest this weekend I feel like – and that’s probably even more frustrating – is that I feel we are maximising the potential of the car. It’s just that the potential of the car is just not there. When I finish a lap, again today in qualifying, I feel very satisfied with my lap, but it’s only bringing us whatever it is, P8 or something.
“So yeah, we’ve got to look at it. I think a track like this also highlights our weaknesses. There’s a lot of low-speed content. Williams are in front of us, and I consider my lap a good one. It’s pretty easy to understand where we are lacking.
“We are just not fast, and whatever we do with the car, we can run it in different ways, but we just don’t have the downforce that the others have at the moment, especially at low speeds.”
Lewis Hamilton has taken a lot of flak recently but the Miami sprint result was a boost
A bold strategy call and a great third place for Lewis Hamilton and Scuderia Ferrari in Saturday’s Miami sprint was a welcome boost after their recent struggles.
It was also a sign that any wild suggestions of a premature end to their relationship are wide of the mark – Hamilton is not the kind of guy to give up on a challenge.
Speaking after the sprint chequered flag he admitted that there is still a long way to go.
“The fact is so far we’re not extracting everything,” he said. “I don’t think we’re extracting everything from the car, and that’s what we need to work on to extract the full potential of the car. I think we have good downforce.
“I don’t think we’re on the same pace as as in McLarens, but I think we we should be fighting a little bit closer, perhaps, to to the Bulls and to McLaren.
“So I think there’s a lot of elements that we need to elevate, and hopefully we’ll try and see if we can do that into into qualifying today. Definitely lots learned already so far.”
It’s not been an easy start to 2026 for Hamilton, and his regular assertion that he’s simply taking time to get used to a new car and team has been met with some scepticism.
However others who are going through the same process this year know exactly what he’s facing as he moves along the learning curve.
Carlos Sainz has noted since the start of the year that he’s been in the same situation, having done the opposite swap from Ferrari to Mercedes power units.
“I’m not surprised at all,” said the Spaniard when I asked him about Hamilton’s struggles.
“I think for me, I expected it to myself, and I expected it with him, because in this sport, there are no secrets. And when you are up against two team mates like we are, like Alex and Charles, that they know the team inside out, and they are already performing at the maximum that that car can perform.
“So you can only do just a little bit better or the same as them. You cannot suddenly arrive and be two three tenths quicker, because it’s not possible. They are already at the limit of the car.
“So when you jump to any team and you’re expected by yourself and by everyone around you to be at that level, you know it’s going to take time if there’s no secrets. They know a lot more than you, and it’s going to take a bit of time. And the sooner you make that process, and the sooner you are at that level, the better.
“But for some drivers, it might take longer or shorter. Lewis had an amazing weekend in China. Then he seemed to have a bit more trouble now. But it’s going to take time for both.”
So how long is it acceptable for a driver to take to make that transition?
“It’s a tricky question, because it depends,” said Sainz. “It depends how natural the car comes to you, depends how natural the relationship with engineers and that blend comes.
“I’ve always said that to know a car well, you need at least half a year to a year to experience everything with that car. That doesn’t mean that you cannot perform during that year. This is a different topic. You can perform at 100% or at 99, and your 99 might still be pretty good, but the 100% for sure, there’s things that you need for sure, half a year, I would say, to experience.
“And I’m not using it as an excuse. I want to perform like I did in Jeddah from race one, even if I am at 97 instead of 99. But it’s I just know it takes time, and I’m going to be demanding with myself.”
You could look at history and point out examples of drivers making a smooth transition and even winning their first races with new teams.
The fact is that the current ground effect cars are much trickier to drive at the limit than those of the past, and range of controls available to drivers far more complicated.
“These cars nowadays, I feel like you need to drive them in a very specific way to be quick,” said Sainz.
“I feel like the cars of ’21 you could come in with two or three different driving styles and more or less get the same lap time, because the car would allow you to get to that limit in different ways.
“I feel the more I get to drive this generation of cars, the more I dig into the data, the more I realise you need to be closed loop to one driving style. And if you don’t drive in that way, you’re never going to be quick.
“And it’s just how the car interacts with you, which allows you to drive in that specific way that you need to make sure you understand. I think these cars are particularly difficult.”
Esteban Ocon’s move from Alpine to Haas has been less high profile than those of Hamilton and Sainz, and he’s had some decent races and scored points. However he’s not had it easy either.
“It’s very difficult,” said the Frenchman when I asked him. “And especially when you change a car’s philosophy, because the Haas car and the Ferrari car have a lot of similarities, so I can relate a little bit to Lewis on that side, having driven the Merc as well in the past, it’s a very different way of driving the car – or extracting the potential of it. And the car feels very different.
“So it’s not easy, for sure, to adapt to that. I’m sure he will find a way very quickly. And in the meantime, I also have to improve quite a lot of things as well, still that I’m in a way of doing. It’s been five races, so things are getting more to normal. There’s more routine now going on, and how we prepare weekends, and how I feel I drive the car.
“I know straight away when something is not quite right, or where it should be compared to before, where I thought it was normality. So the more you drive, the more you learn. But there is at some point, you know, there is no adapting to it. You just have to deal with it.”
Ocon agrees with Sainz that the current ground effect cars are particularly difficult.
“For sure. I don’t think they are forgiving these cars at all, the way they are stiff, how they bounce. You know, how the tyres react. They are better these tyres, but they always tend to understeer quite a lot mid-corner.
“I don’t think there are two ways of driving it. You need to go with one way. There is no other direction that you can drive the car. You need to choose the quickest way, and that’s it.”
Ocon’s boss Ayao Komatsu has suggested that it’s easier for young drivers to adjust to the current cars than those with more knowledge. It’s a curious situation that life is harder for more experienced drivers.
“I think if you come from junior formulas and you go straight into that car you put everything that you’ve learned you know away and you just go into it,” said Ocon. “And you learn the new thing again.
“Now, with our experience, I mean, Lewis has much more experience than me, he’s driven a lot of different cars, but a lot of the same one as well for a long time. So I can understand why it’s not easy. And I know it’s also not easy for me, or for Carlos. But we’ll get there.”
Brown was poking fun at Christian Horner and Red Bull
McLaren F1 boss Zak Brown says the ‘Tire Water!’ drink bottle he displayed on the pit wall in Miami on Friday was a dig at Red Bull boss Christian Horner on what he calls the “serious issue” of teams making accusations about potential illegalities on rival cars.
In 2024 there were suggestions from the Red Bull camp that McLaren was using water in its tyres as a strategy for cooling.
Brown says he’s frustrated that teams can make allegations that cannot be backed up, but which potentially do damage to the accused.
He says that teams should make a formal protest, and that to ensure that they are not frivolous the fee should have a potential impact on the cost cap.
“My new water bottle, so that was poking fun in a serious issue, which is teams have historically made allegations of other teams,” he said. “Most recently, one team focuses on that strategy more than others.
“And I think that there’s a proper way to protest a team at the end of the race, and you have to make it formal, disclose where it comes from, you put some money down. I think that process should be extended to all allegations, to stop the frivolous allegations which are intended only to be a distraction.
“So if you had to put up some money and put on paper and not back channel, what your allegations are. I think that would be a way to clean up the bogus allegations that happen in this sport, which are not very sporting.
“And if someone does believe there’s a technical issue, by all means, you’re entitled to it. Put it on paper, put your money down. You should come against your cost cap if it turns out you’re wrong, and I think that will significantly stop the bogus allegations that come from some teams in the sport.”
Asked what sort of number the fee should be he said: “It needs to be meaningful from a I’m choosing to spend money on that instead of my own racing car. We’re all right at the limit of the budget cap.
“I know how much we will not waste a dollar on anything that we don’t think brings performance. So it’s probably 25 grand.
“If it was kind of would I spend 25 grand on a distraction tactic or development of my own race car, I’d spend 25 grand on my race car all day long. So it doesn’t need to be hundreds of thousands, but it needs to be meaningful enough that you’re taking away performance you’re spending on your car.”
After a qualifying crash Norris recovered to fourth place in the race
World Championships aren’t always won with a succession of glorious victories – even the best Formula 1 drivers have difficult weekends that at the time seem frustrating and yet also give them a chance to show their true class.
For Lando Norris Jeddah was one such challenge, and his heavy crash in Q3 represented an obvious low point in a season that hasn’t gone entirely to plan for the McLaren driver.
As previously noted on Saturday evening and with the help of his team he quickly turned his focus to how to recover ground in Sunday’s race.
The strategy choice was to start on the hard tyres, run as long as possible, and enjoy some time in clean air at the head of the field after others stopped. It worked out well.
Quickly up to eighth after the first lap tangle between Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda, Norris then passed Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton (after a struggle) on track. He was fifth after his late stop and spell in clean air, and he then passed George Russell to claim another spot. Charles Leclerc, who ran a longer opening stint that McLaren had anticipated, remained just out of reach.
A haul of twelve points was perhaps more than Norris could have anticipated as he climbed from his damaged car in qualifying, and they could prove very valuable by the end of this 24-race season.
Despite losing the championship lead to Oscar Piastri he was in an upbeat mood after the flag, aware that he’d done about as well as he could have expected.
“To finish nine seconds off the lead was a little bit surprising,” he said. “So it showed our pace was very good. Mainly considering the clean air around here, it’s just a dream. That little stint as soon as Charles boxed my pace was very good.
“Of course, I was not quite as quick as the leaders on new tyres. But clean air around here is beautiful, so I made the most of it. Charles just did a very good stint on the medium and therefore I didn’t have enough of a tyre delta comparing to him.”
Now he just has to get his head round qualifying, in which Piastri is supreme at the moment: “My Sundays I’m pretty happy with, they’ve been pretty strong. Sunday’s pace has been good. I have the confidence, the pace is there. But I make my life too tough on Saturday.”
It was a good job too by McLaren boss Andrea Stella and his engineering team, both to come up with the strategy and also to keep themselves and more importantly Norris focussed on the job at hand rather than dwelling too much on his costly crash.
“The short version is a great recovery by Lando,” said Stella when I asked him about Norris’s race.
“We had long discussions about the starting tyres. We elected to go on the hard tyres because we were hoping that, even if for a brief window, but we could have some possibility to exploit the pace of the car.
“I think on Friday, we saw that Lando was the fastest driver in terms of long run and race pace simulation. So we wanted to make sure that we were in condition to exploit this. And in a way, this was a good decision by Lando and the strategy guys.”
Stella said the race went pretty much to plan, although he acknowledged that the tussle with Hamilton could have cost third place.
“It actually unfolded pretty much like when you do your simulations on the paper, pretty much that was the case,” he said. “But at the same time, I think for a podium finish today, we would have needed not to lose the time with Hamilton.
“Obviously, Hamilton is Lewis Hamilton. He knows very well how to race, and for a couple of laps, he managed to pass Lando. And I think this cost us the time that ultimately means that we could not give a go at trying to overtake Leclerc.
“At the same time, Leclerc and Ferrari, they were very fast, well done to Ferrari on their first podium. Very deserved, in a way, by the race pace that they exhibited, especially at the end of the first stint. That was quite impressive, because we didn’t think that the medium tyres could behave like that.
“But in a way, he also gave us the confidence that the final stint of Lando would have been strong, and indeed it was strong. There was not much degradation. This allowed him to pass Russell, but ultimately, I think the time lost with Hamilton, and the fact that Leclerc had such a strong pace, meant that he couldn’t recover to the podium.
“And yet great recovery, important points for the championship, and also, I think, important for Lando’s morale. It shows his race craft is absolutely brilliant.
“And like he said in the in-lap, we just have to polish a little bit the Saturdays, and we will have fun.”
Norris has talked a lot about not feeling comfortable in the 2025 car, and has suggested that changes made relative to the previous model have not worked in his favour.
Intriguingly McLaren is yet to fully ascertain exactly how that has played out, as technical director performance Mark Temple admitted on Friday in Jeddah.
“It’s an interesting point, and it’s one that we’ve been discussing a lot with Lando,” he said when I asked him about Norris’s struggles. “Of course, he’s an extremely talented and quite finely-tuned driver and athlete. He’s very sensitive to the car, and that shows in his performance.
“We know when we changed with the car, but working out what the contribution to that lack of little bit of feeling completely dialled in, it’s hard to know. So that’s something we’re discussing at length, of him, looking at the data, understanding the changes we’ve made.
“And it’s very much there’s nothing obvious that you can say, yeah, that’s something we need to change. We need to really get into the detail and then take a very considered, careful approach to make sure we don’t a throw away performance from the car or do something which actually makes it harder for him.”
So can Norris adapt or does the car have to be adjusted?: “There’s two different parts. We’ve obviously had a look at the last couple of races there some minor changes we made, which may help, but I think it’s also for him to look at the driving and understand himself how the car behaves, so that he can adapt to it.”
After a hectic five races in six weekends the break after Jeddah gives Norris a chance to take stock. Next stop is Miami, where McLaren’s current run of success was kickstarted by his first win. Can he bounce back there?
[If you’re an outlet that can use stories like this please get in touch!]
Inspired by Andrea Stella Norris and McLaren quickly turned their attention to Sunday’s race
When Lando Norris met the media in Jeddah not long after his heavy Q3 crash he was surprisingly calm and collected, given the obvious blow to his title hopes associated with a P10 start.
If anything he was less stressed that he had been exactly a week earlier in Bahrain, when he made his frustration at qualifying only sixth very obvious.
On this occasion crucially he’d already had an opportunity to speak to his team, and his own subsequent approach mirrored theirs – yes the crash wasn’t ideal, but let’s think about how do we turn this around in Sunday’s race?
It’s a positive approach that has been fostered by team principal and accomplished man manager Andrea Stella.
His engineer’s instincts kicked in – let’s deal with the challenge we now have – while at the same time helping to ensure that Norris himself quickly moved on.
“When you have an incident in qualifying, it’s always unfortunate,” said the Italian. “Because like today, Lando could have been the first row, and now we are starting from 10th.
“But these guys are race drivers, they have done this their entire life. I’m sure it’s not the only disappointing Saturday that Lando might have had in his career. We are all, drivers included, very thick skinned. Very used to that, very determined.
“In the briefing our focus immediately shifted onto what tyres for tomorrow? How do we try to use the performance that we are showing on Friday?
“It’s not only a morale aspect, it’s also almost a methodological aspect, like how do I move from this point into good? There’s a race tomorrow, let’s be programmed, let’s go and actually use this disappointment as additional determination.
“That was the conversation in the briefing, if you want. That’s the sport. And I think when you are into the sport, when you are the athlete or the engineers, you are well-trained, and sometimes you just have these five minutes of disappointment, and then you know how to convert it. This is what I’ve seen has happened with Lando and also with the team.”
Asked about his friend’s incident Carlos Sainz suggested that he could bounce back, citing last year’s Brazilian GP – when the fortunes of Norris and Max Verstappen were reversed – as an example of how quickly things can change between a Saturday and Sunday.
When I asked Stella if the circumstances now gave Norris a chance to turn things around on Sunday and show what he’s made of he agreed.
“One hundred per cent,” he said. “After five minutes, Lando was here, back in the office. Immediately, the mindset changed. That’s not the position that we want to be in a race in which we could have started from the front row.
“But actually, we take it as an opportunity to show our determination, to show the strength from our attitudinal point of view, in terms of our mindset. This was very much what we talked about in the debrief, post-qualifying and also the genuine attitude that everyone brought into the debriefing and into preparing and positioning the team for having a good race tomorrow.
“I really hope that we will be in condition to have some free laps, free air laps tomorrow, use the pace that we saw on Friday, and this weekend could actually be a weekend from which we come out stronger, reinforced, even more confident, because we see our strengths. And I think this aspect of the qualifying is very episodical.
“We just have to sort of understand how to deal with the fact that perhaps sometimes you just don’t have to go for the final few milliseconds until we make the car just more genuine in terms of the cueing and the feedback that the car gives to the drivers, this is 100% responsibility of the team.”
To his credit Stella also suggested that the team takes responsibility for putting Norris in a position where mistakes can happen at the very limit.
That’s an impressive attitude to adopt, especially when your driver hits a low like Lando did on Saturday evening.
Stella explained: “I think in Q3 when Lando tries to squeeze a few more milliseconds out of the car, what we see – and I think we are starting to see this even better in the in the data, like in terms of identification of what is going on – when he tries to squeeze this extra millisecond, just the car doesn’t respond as he expects.
“So I think this is a behaviour that kind of surprises him. Today it surprised him. The car understeered a bit in corner four, ended up on the outside kerb, and this outside kerb can be quite unforgiving.
“So in a way, it’s almost episodical. What’s happening is an episode, and it’s an episode that I think starts from some of the work that we have done on the car. It made the car faster overall, but I think it took something away from Lando in terms of predictability of the car once he pushes the car at the limit.
“So it’s a responsibility of the team to try and improve the car and to try and correct this behaviour, because we want Lando to be confident, comfortable that he can push the car.
“And when he needs to find a few milliseconds, he can do it with a behaviour of the car that, okay, maybe you realise I pushed a bit too much, but without this sort of macroscopic consequences. So I see very much of a responsibility of the team in terms of improving the situation.”
Stela acknowledged that it might take time to hone the car, and in the interim the key is to ensure that Norris is able to cope as best he can.
“What’s important from Lando’s side is that in the meantime, while we don’t improve it, he maintains the confidence and he maintains an availability to adapt. These cars are so fast, they are so demanding in terms of just adopting a very natural driving style.
“We hear this even from Hamilton, seven times world champion, and yet, he talks about driving the car in a natural way, because these cars are too fast to think. You either kind of get what you anticipate from the car, or you’re going to be slow.
“And Lando doesn’t accept to be slow. So it’s our responsibility to make sure that we give him a car that is at the level of his talent.”
[If you’re an outlet that can use stories like the above do get in touch as I am available for work!]
Sainz enjoyed his best qualifying session to date with Williams in Jeddah
Carlos Sainz continues to make progress as he finds his feet at the Williams Formula 1 team, and having qualified eighth in Bahrain he followed up with sixth place in Jeddah.
He was gifted a place by Lando Norris’s crash, but nevertheless on both occasions he has outpaced the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton and the Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda.
Bahrain ended in frustration for the Spaniard with damage from a collision with Tsunoda, and he was also penalised for forcing Kimi Antonelli off the track.
With that very much on his mind he concedes that he’s looking at a more conservative approach on Sunday’s race, when big points could be up for grabs for anyone who sees the chequered flag in one piece.
“Honestly, after Friday, I saw a very big difference in race pace between the top cars and the midfield,” he said of his race prospects.
“It seems like the top cars managed to overheat the tyres a lot less than the midfield. So I expect a very difficult race tomorrow to keep the two or three cars that I have clearly quicker behind me.
“I need to think a bit about it, think a bit good tonight. Think about whether I put on a good fight like I did in Bahrain with them, and challenge them and make myself as wide as possible, or pick better my fights.
“In the heat of the battle it will be tough to stay disciplined, but my feeling tells me probably tomorrow is a better day to live to fight another day, and give myself a good chance of finishing in the points.”
Given that history suggests that Jeddah is a race of high attrition that rewards patience, staying clear of trouble would seem to be a good strategy.
“Yeah, I agree,” he said when I put that to him. “It’s a race that requires patience; it requires discipline on staying just one step away from the wall. Today, definitely, I enjoyed pushing the limits of the car in such a demanding track, getting myself comfortable around these walls at these speeds.
“We’re going with a car that still feels not very familiar to me, but I discovered lots of new things, and tomorrow I hope to do the same, put together a solid race, and bring home the first big haul of points for Williams from my side, which is the target.
“At the same time, we’re still only in race five, and we seem to be making good progress. So step-by-step.”
Beating a Red Bull and a Ferrari twice in two qualifying sessions is a sign of progress, even if both drivers – like Carlos himself – are still in the process of adjusting to an unfamiliar car.
“Definitely another good weekend so far, right from the start of FP1,” he said. “Feeling a step better and going in the right direction with setup and driving, still having to think a lot to pull some good lap together, but definitely feeling more at home and more comfortable with things.
“Happy and proud with the progress that we’re making, with the direction we’re following, as you said, second weekend in a row, that we must be quite close to the limit of the car, given that we managed to beat a Red Bull and a Ferrari, and obviously McLaren with a crash.
“So yeah, let’s keep going in that direction, keep following the same philosophy, one step at a time, and it will come as it’s coming little-by-little.”
The fact that between them Sainz and his team mate Alex Albon are regularly getting inside the top 10 at a variety of venues has to be a positive sign.
“This is a very confidence-driven circuit,” he said. “You need a lot of confidence to hustle the car around the walls at the speeds that we’re going, and you need to trust the car.
“And I feel like definitely, this weekend, I’m a step closer to being comfortable, given that it’s a very high confidence track, I’ve been competitive. So it shows the progress.
“And the direction we’re going is the positive one. At the same time, I’m sure there will be a lot more setbacks where I will need to learn from, try set-up directions or driving styles that I’ll get wrong.
“But trial and error will keep working and give me the awareness of what I need to do to be quick with this car. For now, it’s definitely paying.”
[If you’re an outlet that can use stories like this please get in touch as I am available for work!]
Norris was fastest in Q2 in Jeddah before he crashed out
Lando Norris was at a loss for an explanation and admitted that he had made his life “a lot harder” after a crash at the start of Q3 in Jeddah left him with no time in the session and stranded him in 10th on the grid.
It’s a huge blow to his title campaign with rivals Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri starting on the front row.
The shunt came after Piastri seized the initiative in Bahrain last weekend with his second win of the season, while Verstappen’s pole means that the Red Bull driver can’t be ruled out of the title fight, despite the limitations of the RB21.
“I don’t know what happened,” said Norris when I asked him to talk through the incident. “I’ve not had any time to look into it, obviously. So just a mistake I guess. I don’t know what I’ve done.
“I was pretty comfortable, I was pretty happy until then, the car was strong. So disappointed.
“Obviously, I made my life and everyone in the team’s a lot trickier for tomorrow and a lot harder, because the guys have got a big job tonight to try and fix everything. But it’s life. This happens on a rare occasion. So yeah, a tough one.”
Norris hopes to make progress on Sunday but he concedes that McLaren doesn’t have a pace advantage this weekend.
“We’ve got to look at the bright side and hope that we can have a good race tomorrow,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s going to be an easy one, because I don’t think it’s very easy to overtake around here, but we have a strong car, clearly not as good as what we would like, because we’re not on pole, and Max is first, and George is only a tenth behind.
“So it’s not like things are plain sailing at the minute. So yeah, a big job to try and do tomorrow.”
Team radio caught Norris calling himself a “****ing idiot” before he climbed out of the damaged car. Reminded of his words he stood by them.
“Makes sense!,” he said. “Well yeah, I agree with it. I should be fighting for pole and especially on a Q1 lap I shouldn’t be taking any silly risks like I seem to have done, and I need to go and review it all, like I said.
“But not a guarantee we would have been on pole, because Max looks like he did a good job. Red Bull, they were quick the whole of qualifying, it wasn’t a surprise. Would have been nice just to be in that fight. I was doing well until then, and feeling comfortable.
“I mean it makes sense, I shunted. So again, I’m not going to be proud, I’m not going to be happy. I’ve let myself down and let the team down, and the guys have got a big job to do now to fix it all.
“So, yeah, it’s the way it is. I agree with what I said, But I still look forward to tomorrow and have to try make up for today.”
The accident aside Norris agreed that he was more comfortable with the car than he was a week ago in Bahrain.
“I’m happier, but it’s a very different layout. It’s a lot grippier. The grip here is incredible. So happier. I mean, we’ve tried to work on a few things. I’ve had to work a lot of my driving.
“It’s got nothing to do with it. This is just a separate mistake, but the team are doing a good job in trying to understand these things. Yeah, just takes some time.”
Oscar Piastri has upped his game over one lap. Can he continue to outrun Lando Norris?
Can Oscar Piastri maintain the momentum that he’s started to build over the first four races of the 2025 Formula 1 season?
He heads into Sunday’s race in Jeddah just three points shy of McLaren team mate Lando Norris. They’ve been closely matched, but Piastri’s late off in the Melbourne rain proved costly and gave the Englishman the initial advantage.
Since then the Aussie has scored two wins from pole position, and he’s shown beyond all doubt that his one-lap pace has taken a big step since last year, when Norris was dominant.
Lando meanwhile has made it clear that he’s not comfortable with the MCL39, and thus far is not maximising his potential.
With his main rival on the backfoot now would seem to be the perfect time for Piastri to press home the advantage.
Amid all the talk of papaya rules and equal treatment if he continues to outqualify and outrace Norris then the World Championship will ultimately take care of itself.
“Qualifying is incredibly important I think,” he said when I put that to him in Jeddah on Thursday.
“Regardless of the kind of intra-team dynamics with pit stop preferences and whatever that that causes. Just the power of clean air is so important. So I think regardless of that, you always want to be qualifying at the front.
“But yes, with two drivers in the same car, I think with very similar pace, whenever you can be ahead, it’s a pretty major advantage.
“So it is going to be important to have good qualifying. But we’ve seen in the past that it’s not always everything, there’s other areas where you can make up the difference, if you do a good enough job.”
Piastri worked over the winter to improve his one-lap form, and it appears to have paid dividends. The team mate qualifying battle now stands at 3:2 in his favour, including the Shanghai sprint.
“I think the hard work we’ve been putting in definitely has been making a difference,” he says. “I think I’ve felt comfortable in qualifying, and felt like I’ve taken a bit of a step up. I think last year it wasn’t much that I often missed out by.
“But this year I’ve had a couple qualifying just on the wrong side of that gap still, but also more qualifyings on the right side of that gap now. So it’s been a lot of hard work in a lot of different areas, trying to get those last few hundredths of a second. And I think it has been paying off.”
His earlier dirty air reference is significant. We’ve seen this year how Lewis Hamilton in the Shanghai sprint and Max Verstappen in Suzuka were able to stay out in front of potentially faster McLarens. Piastri doesn’t believe that the MCL39 suffers more in traffic than other cars.
“Not necessarily, I think everybody struggles with it, it’s pretty similar for most of the teams,” he says. “We saw in China that the Ferrari was very quick through the whole weekend, and they also struggled to get through the dirty air. So I think it’s just a grid wide problem.
“I don’t think it’s specific to us, and I don’t really plan on testing that theory too many times hopefully! It is just difficult for everybody with more and more downforce going on, more and more dirty air.”
One intriguing aspect to the McLaren battle is that the team will have to work hard to ensure equal treatment, and especially that neither driver gets an advantage from having a single set of development parts, which happened on occasion last season when the team had to get new bits to the track asap. Piastri doesn’t see that as an issue this time around.
“I think this year the situation is very, very different,” he says. “I think last year, especially at the beginning of the season, we were incredibly keen to get whatever performance we could onto the car as quickly as possible. And we needed to make up a points deficit, in the constructors’ championship, especially.
“This year, we’re in a very different position. Obviously, we have already a decent gap in the constructors’ championship and both of us fighting for the drivers’ championship.
“It’s expected that that we’ll both have an equal opportunity and the same car to be able to fight for the drivers’ championship, and obviously in the constructors’ championship, we’re in a good place. While we have the opportunity to keep it equal, and have the same car every weekend, we should do that.”
Any advantage that either man can establish will have to come from the cockpit. You don’t have to be a sports psychologist to see the contrasts in approach between the pair, with Norris wearing his heart on his sleeve and being open about his struggles, and Piastri seemingly gliding serenely through each race weekend.
“I think for everyone, they kind of work in different ways,” he says. “For me, trying to stay calm is a very important thing. It helps me get the best out of myself. So that’s how I think I operate the best. And I think it’s been working so far.”
So does he ever get emotional in the car?
“I have been a couple of times through my career,” he admits. “And yeah, I think when they’re negative emotions, it does have a negative impact. So that’s why I try… I think it comes somewhat naturally being calm and trying to stay relaxed, but there’s a lot of conscious effort on that as well.
“But there’s also positive emotions that are there as well. I said after China if you had a camera on me, and you could see my face, I was pretty damn excited.
“So there are emotions out there. The radio is a button for a reason, and you use it when, when you think you should. There’s probably more that you don’t see under the helmet…”
What then of this weekend? Norris had the edge by just 0.163s in Friday’s FP2 session, and it will be fascinating to see how qualifying unfolds when it really matters on Saturday evening.
[If you’re an outlet that can use stories like the above do get in touch as I am available for work!]
He’s leading the F1 World Championship but Norris believes he should be doing even better
Lando Norris is a guy who always wears his heart on his sleeve, and when he doesn’t achieve the high level that he expects from himself, he can’t hide his feelings.
He was particularly frustrated after qualifying only sixth in Bahrain last weekend. A snap of oversteer at the first corner on his Q3 lap proved very costly, and with McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri on pole he knew that he was facing a difficult race, and potentially a major blow to his title hopes.
Immediately after the session he highlighted what he saw as his poor personal performance in his typically open style.
“I’ve been off it all weekend,” he said. “Don’t know why. Just clueless on track at the minute. So I don’t know, I just need a big reset, that’s all. Just not quick enough, simple as that.”
Thanks to a great first lap he recovered ground on Sunday, and ultimately even overcame a penalty for being out of position on the grid to claim the final spot on the podium.
Crucially it meant he retained his World Championship lead, albeit by slender three points over Piastri.
This was supposed to be Norris’s year, but a combination of his own personal struggles and his team mate’s improved form over one lap mean that it hasn’t quite turned out that way.
Yes, he won the first race in Melbourne and he is still leading in the points, but he’s adamant that he hasn’t performed at the level that he feels he can and should.
In essence the MCL39 doesn’t suit him as much as its predecessor, and he’s struggled to come to terms with that. Finding his way out of that situation is the challenge that he now faces.
“I needed a couple days off,” he said in Jeddah on Thursday. “Obviously I needed a reset – probably would have liked a few more days altogether. But I made the most of my three days relaxing, kind of getting away from a little bit.
“But at the same time, I think with every athlete’s mind and every driver’s mind, as much as you try and get away, you’re still thinking of a lot of things. So for a lot of my time I was still thinking of the difficulties that I’ve been struggling with.”
“It’s still been a very good start to the year. I’ve tried to force myself to think of what a success the start of the season has been.
“Yes, I know it could have been better, but still leading the championship, after not being happy, after not feeling comfortable in the car. It’s still a start to the year that I would have dreamed of before the season.
“I’ve tried to remind myself of some of the positives, which there have still been quite a few of. But being myself, I’ve been trying to figure out the issues, the struggles, the reasoning behind it all. The most difficult thing is trying to find the answers to things.”
On the glass half full side he believes that he can make a step, even as early as Jeddah.
“I think we’re along the right track,” he said. “I think we started to figure out some things on where I struggle, why I struggle, the reasons for these struggles, and I’m already trying to implement things for this weekend, I’m trying to improve in some of those areas.
“It’s not like I want to come into this weekend and I’m full of confidence, and I know that things are going to turn around. I still think there are things I’m going to be struggling with, because certain things you cannot change at the minute.
“But there are certain things that I’m able to maybe re-look into from an approach point of view, from a driving style point of view, stuff which I’ve probably never had to think of necessarily before. It’s just not my normal way of driving or thinking. And then go from there.
“So it’s also a weekend where I want to perform, I want to do well. But it’s early on enough in the season where if I can try and work on some things here and improve in some areas, that will all pay off in the longer run.”
In terms of specifics he also highlighted “the struggles that I’m having to feel the limit of the car and understand the limit of the car, which is completely different to last season, and just not allowing me to drive in the same way, and with the same abilities that I could perform at a very, very high level last season.”
The busy start to the 2025 means that we’ve had five races in six weekends. Like other drivers Norris always prefers to be behind the wheel of the real car.
On the other hand he hasn’t had much time to catch his breath and properly explore what he can do to improve his situation.
“Of course, we’d like to get back in the simulator and be able to try different things and figure out some of these things,” he said. “Some of which will take more time from a team point of view, and understanding what has changed so much from last year to this year with the car, and those kinds of things.
“But from a driver point of view, it’s better that I can learn from the last few weeks. Already I’ve worked a lot with my team over the last three days, and I’ll try to put it into practice this weekend.”
Given that he’s still performing at a high level despite not being comfortable with the car is he confident that when he is he will be able to outpace Piastri on a regular basis?
“I just want to help outpace the field,” he said when I put that to him. “I don’t really care who. There’s been plenty of times over the last few years when I’ve had a great position in qualifying or a great race, and I’ve come in disappointed.
“That’s because most of my enjoyment comes from knowing that I’ve achieved what I know I can achieve in a qualifying or a race, disregarding whether that’s first or second or third or whatever.
“At the minute I pay the price for these mistakes, but it’s not because of being behind any certain people or anything that you’re insinuating. It’s just, I know I can be so much better and perform at a much higher level than what I’m doing now.”
What makes it more painful for Norris is that the latter part of last year showed him what sort of level he is capable of achieving.
“My level of confidence was very high at the end of last season, not for any other reason, but I just understood the car,” he said. “I understood how to drive it, and I could go out and execute things perfectly.
“Now I cannot, just because my feelings are not there, my way of driving is not suited at all, and I just hate not being able to know how I’m going to go out and perform in a qualifying lap.
“Maybe it’s a lie, but last year if you had asked me are you confident going into qualifying, I would have been much more likely to say ‘yes’ than what I am now.
“And that’s just because of how I feel in the car itself. It’s not for any reason bar I know what I know what I can do, and I know what I’m doing, and I know what I can do and achieve is a lot higher than what I’m doing now.
“So the fact that I’m still leading the championship, the fact that the start of the year has not been dreadful, probably gives me more hope than anything else, that if I can get things to click and move in the right direction, then I’m hopeful that I can start to become much stronger.”
Norris’s honesty is always refreshing, although he’s been criticised for being too hard on himself in public. That’s just part of who he is, but he admits that he should perhaps try to be more upbeat.
“I want to achieve my potential,” he said. “And at the minute, I’m just not achieving my potential, and there’s no reason for me to be happy with that.
“I know I’m hard, and I know I’m tough for myself, but for 95% of it, I think it’s a good thing, and I think it’s what makes me who I am, and makes me have a chance in F1 and be with McLaren and be fighting for a World Championship.
“I accept that there’s probably the last few percent, which can be a very important few percent, where I probably say too many negatives, and that gets into my own head.
“And I don’t think of the positives as much as I should. If I did tell myself at the beginning of the year that I could be leading the championship after four races, I would probably be very happy.”
[If you’re an outlet that can use stories like this do get in touch as I’m available for work!]
Adam Cooper F1 