McLaren Formula 1 driver Lando Norris has denied the notion that he is too critical of himself following an error, citing that is how he operates at his best in a racing environment.
Norris capitalised on McLaren’s remarkable mid-season turnaround to produce his most fruitful campaign in F1, recording seven podiums to amass a career-best 205 points.
But Norris was unable to end his protracted F1 win drought as he rued squandered chances in qualifying that prevented him from toppling Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
The Briton believes he missed out on pole position in Qatar when he exceeded track limits, while he also condemned his one-lap efforts in both the United States and Mexico.
That culminated with Norris labelling his one-lap form “shit” in Abu Dhabi after a slide in the final sector dropped him from the front row to fifth for the final grand prix of 2023.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella was led to admit that the side is aiming to identify methods to ensure Norris stops being “very harsh on himself” in response to mistakes.
However, Norris has retorted that he needs to ease up on the criticism, insisting that some of his best race performances arrived when he had sustained a poor qualifying.
“As much as I get annoyed with myself on Saturdays at times and people are like, ‘you shouldn’t beat yourself up’ and all of that stuff, a lot of my best performances come then on that next day,” he told Autosport.
“And it doesn’t affect me when I go and drive the next day, because I’m like, ‘Oh I still just messed up Saturday’.
“Just because I say it and things, it doesn’t mean that. And I think a lot of people have different opinions on it, but I’ve always been that way.
“Since karting, I’ve always been like that. It’s the way I got brought up and it’s the way I’ve developed into being the driver that I am today.
“And, at times, maybe it’s not the best thing and I do get just very frustrated and down over a lot of it, but just because I care about doing a good job and trying to deliver for the team. So, I do it, not that I just purposely try to do it, but because it’s just the way that I work best. And it’s the way that I’m able to bounce back best.
“Therefore, I’ve always just been very honest when I think I’ve done a good job and bad job.”
Despite spearheading McLaren’s rise to fourth in the Constructors’ standings, Norris concedes “that it was clear there’s places I need to work on and places I didn’t always deliver as much as I should’ve done” in 2023.
He continued: “But there’s also a lot of cases of once that did happen, how did I comeback from that and overcome that the next day?
“Which was generally the letdowns on a Saturday and making up for it on a Sunday. And I think I did exactly that.
“95% of the time was, yeah, even when I made those mistakes, which I’m always happy to admit and I’ve always said and so on, was how do I bounce back the next day and turn up on Sunday with the kind of clear mindset of, ‘ok, I’m starting in this position, how can I do my best job from here?’
“And I think all of those races genuinely were… actually turned out to be some of my better races!”
