McLaren has a case for why the rate of “driving problems” appears to have increased of late, following Lando Norris’ latest self-flagellation for a “stupid mistake” in Abu Dhabi Formula 1 qualifying.
A clearly frustrated Norris bemoaned a “terrible” Saturday at the Yas Marina circuit as a mistake cost him the first row start for the season finale, even though pole position looked out of reach.
“It’s just a little mistake, I don’t know why it happened, I didn’t do it all weekend,” Norris said after qualifying fifth in Abu Dhabi.
“Just frustrating, I’m just doing *** work on Saturday.”
It is the fourth time in five races that Norris has criticized himself after qualifying, with even his pole sprint lap in Brazil criticized.
Mistakes in Qatar and especially in Mexico, where he was disqualified in Q1, were more costly, and asked if he was too hard on himself, Norris said: “Not at all. I should have been P2 and I end up P5 because of a stupid mistake .
“I’m too soft on myself.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella reckoned there might be a technical reason why Norris made so many mistakes.
There’s an established tendency for this McLaren to be awkward to drive at times, just as its predecessors suffered from what Stella calls “the famous McLaren traits” of recent years.
But McLaren is beginning to wonder if the upgrades made to the MCL60 that have greatly improved its overall performance over the course of the season have also created a new problem for drivers.
The theory is that the Singapore package has potentially made the car too top-of-the-line in certain conditions, given the error rate since then.
Asked by The Race, given Norris’ self-criticism, where to draw the line between the driver’s responsibility and the difficulty of driving the car, Stella said: “That’s an interesting subject. It’s not easy to describe with some good engineering behind it Needs some interpretation.
“It’s often difficult to understand where the drive element is and is there an engineering element? Is there a characteristic of the car that makes it so sharp, so unpredictable, in certain situations?
“Certainly, in our composition, we [arrived at] the fact that recently, we’ve had some driving issues that seem to be more frequent than normal.
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“So there’s something we have to look at – not the famous McLaren features, but in this development, which has certainly given grip, we’ve incorporated some elements that probably [mean] does the car just lose too much grip too quickly in certain conditions?
“This is an assumption. It’s not about facts, but you’re working with assumptions, so you can look at the data, look at the information with a key.
“And that’s certainly a key that we’re going to use in the next few days to see what we learn from these situations.”
Despite the possible mitigating factor, Stella said he believes the way Norris reacts to his mistakes, specifically how he talks about himself, is one of two things the podium winner can improve after this one. last mistake.
He felt that the way Norris addressed his own performance “deserves attention” because there are obvious positives in the work he did this weekend and it would be detrimental to simply “punish” himself.
The second is that Norris may have to “accept that a 99.9% round is good enough” at times, in order to plan more consistently.
Stella was also asked by The Race if the drivers were pushing each other to cut back more and if the performance of rookie Oscar Piastri, who was third fastest in qualifying in Abu Dhabi, could push Norris into mistakes.
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“The first one I can answer with 100% certainty: because we have two fast drivers, they both raise their game,” said Stella.
“When you look at the overlaps between the two in these practices, we could already see that even when we don’t look that competitive in timing, if you put the best of the two together, we’re really strong.
“Oscar had some places where he had to work and adapt, and the same for Lando – he had a place where he had to work and adapt, based on the other person’s data.
“Because you have a competitive teammate, you can see how you can go faster in certain places. That happened.
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“The second element [whether Piastri is pushing Norris into mistakes] is a little more difficult to estimate. But we need to make sure we’re supporting our drivers to reach their full potential. This is just continuous improvement.
“And you have to use all the information, including looking at the trends during qualifying. What happens where we go wrong? Under what conditions did we do it? There is something that can be improved technically, but there is something that can be improved from the human side?
“We definitely know that when the teammate is strong, that second element [the human side] tends to be more prevalent.
“It’s definitely something to think about.”