Lando Norris has considered adopting an “opposite” approach to ensure that he maximises the potential of McLaren’s Formula 1 cars on a regular basis in qualifying.
With slim margins separating the top five Constructors over a single lap in 2024, securing grid position has become more pivotal to enhancing drivers’ race prospects.
Norris criticised his efforts towards the end of last term as he squandered multiple opportunities to secure pole positions, culminating in him labelling his work “s***”.
The Briton has admitted he’s been unable to get on top of that aspect of a weekend with the current ground effect cars, prompting him to ponder a changed approach.
Expanding upon the reasons for his troubles, Norris believes the rules overhaul has left him struggling to attack in the manner he did the previous spec cars he started with.
“In qualifying, I’ve always been wanting to push quite a bit more in certain areas and kind of want to go out and just be attacking. And I have to do the complete opposite,” he said.
“It’s a hard one to get my head around because I want to go out and find another level in qualifying, and you just can’t do that with these tyres and with our car. You almost have to drive it the opposite way.
“So there’s something, almost from being used to the cars a few years ago, that’s kind of punishing me now and not adapting quick enough. But that’s something that’s up to me.
“That’s my job to adapt and to do a better job on, but also just with how our car is, how you have to drive it, it’s always been said and it continues to be quite a tricky car to drive.
“So to execute a perfect qualifying lap every single time is not an easy thing to do and that’s also like we said something we’re working on.”
Norris discussed a loss of feeling behind the wheel of the McLaren coinciding with the rules change and is still trying to understand how best to adapt his approach on track.
“If you ask me now, ‘how do I drive a low-speed corner’, I’ve got no idea, I don’t,” he continued. “One day it’s like this; the next day it is like that. I struggle with just the confidence of knowing exactly how to improve in all cases.
“When it does click, it clicks, and I can have a good quali. But yeah, I just lost a little bit of that feeling over the last couple of years of going out in quali and attacking and putting in the laps that I want to put in.
“It’s hard to make myself not push and not be attacking when you’re competitive and you want to go for a better lap.”
Last season, McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella advised Norris to drive at 99% during qualifying; but Norris believes his struggles are not solely tied to his approach.
“It’s like I can’t even drive at 100%,” he added. “100% works one lap in 10.
“So, when you want to go into Q3 and put your best lap on, it might be that one lap you have to drive at 98% all of a sudden. It’s just a complicated thing, and difficult to be on the limit.
“Depending on a couple kilometres an hour wind, or the tyres being a bit hotter or a bit colder, it changes how much you’re able to push in every single corner. So, you have to think of these things.
“Like, okay, the winds changed this little amount, it means I have to brake one metre earlier and you have to do this. And it isn’t an easy thing to be on top of all the time.
“It’s stuff I’m working on, stuff I’ve improved a bit over the last couple of weeks. Last weekend [in Australia] was a bit more of the indication, the first indication of, okay, when it clicks, this is what we can kind of do.”
Although simulator work could help iron out the issues, Norris admits that that could prove difficult without replicating the emotional aspect of a real qualifying session.
“It’s tough, because not always is it the best correlation,” said Norris of the work that can be done in the simulator back in Woking.
“There are certain techniques and abilities of trying to drive relaxed. Those are the kind of things you can do on the simulator.
“But recreating that exact emotion of when you’re in the car, and you’re going for a quali lap, it’s not easy to replicate such a thing on a simulator.
“A bit of it is trial and error, of just trying to make it a normality. The thing is when I drive, I drive so subconsciously, that the less I think of driving, the better I drive.
“If I just go out, and I’m watching the grandstands, this is normally when I’m doing a better job. But I’m naturally just going out and pushing.
“So, when you have to try and change your subconscious and try and just chill, it’s not an easy thing to change. That’s something that just gets developed over the years. And it’s not easy to just revert on.
“It’s just drifted away from me probably over the last year and a bit: the older regulation, it was easier to drive and to find the limit.
“Every day is a new day, there’s always new challenges and new issues. But that’s part of it; it’s the same for everyone. I just think that at times it’s been tricky with our car.
“But my job as a driver is to do the best I can on adapting to it myself as well.”
