Lando Norris and McLaren are searching for ‘adjustments’ at the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix to improve his confidence with the MCL39.
Norris has reiterated several times that he can’t quite gel his style with the McLaren MCL39.
The Woking-based outfit’s car has the ultimate potential among the F1 field, but it will punish mistakes, with Norris’ qualifying in China proving that to be the case.
Arriving in Bahrain, Norris said he’s still searching for answers behind his ill feelings with the MCL39.
“It’s not a finished answer I would say,” he told select media, including Motorsport Week, on Thursday.
“There are some things from Japan that I found quite tricky and I’ve still not got my head around just yet, which is not a perfect answer from my side.
“You want to start the season knowing everything and knowing the perfect way to approach qualifying, approach a race, but I’m not at that point yet.
“I was more comfortable at the end of last year for sure. I felt like I understood very clearly how to go into qualifying, how to find lap time, how to execute a perfect race.”
Norris explained that in 2025, he’s not able to comfortably execute the perfect qualifying lap or race as he could with last year’s MCL38.
“This year, for different reasons, there’s a lot of things that have changed, the tyres, the cars,” he said.
“I’m not in the same comfort area that I was last year in terms of knowledge of execution.”
Norris ‘not miles off’ with McLaren MCL39
Still after winning the season-opener in Australia and finishing runner-up in China and Japan, Norris leads the Drivers’ standings by a solitary point over Max Verstappen.
So, it’s not all doom and gloom for the Briton.
“And it doesn’t mean it’s bad, I know it’s not like I’m miles off,” he said.
“I’m still feeling like I’m having a good year so far, without that kind of perfect feeling that I had at the end of last season, but we’re trying things.
“We’re trying things differently to what we’ve done in the past to try and get me back to that same comfort level where I know how to do a perfect qualifying lap, how to execute a perfect race,
“But it’s tricky, it’s not like you can just turn the car upside down and things work.
“You have to, sometimes, slowly try new things and try different things to get that feeling back.”
Norris’ boss, Andrea Stella, was quizzed on the McLaren driver’s troubles on Friday and, without divulging precise details, pointed out that Bahrain will be a journey of discovery to see if the team can find the Briton some solutions.
“I think on Lando’s side, there’s especially a particular phase of driving the car that doesn’t make him entirely comfortable,” Stella said.
“I think we’ve achieved a very good understanding of what that is.
“It would be inappropriate to share the details, but let me say that even for this race, we’ve made some adjustments to the car – going back to some solutions that we think may improve the predictability of the car in relation to Lando’s driving input.
“So it’s actually an interesting weekend even from this point of view, and we look forward to seeing what we will learn.”
Signs point towards Piastri winning McLaren intra-team battle in Bahrain
So far, Norris is producing strong results, topping FP1 and finishing second in FP2.
However, his FP2 result saw him sit 0.154s behind chart-topper and team-mate Oscar Piastri.
Piastri has acknowledged the MCL39’s propensity to bite, but hasn’t voiced concerns to the extent Norris has and based on Friday evening’s results, the Australian is in a better frame of mind heading into qualifying.
Despite enjoying a comfortable margin over the rest of the field, Norris admitted on Friday, “It’s kind of weird today, because everything feels dreadful, but I think relatively our pace was still in a reasonable place.”
Piastri, meanwhile, said, “I’m pretty happy, to be honest.”
Could the intra-team battle swing in the Aussie’s favour this weekend and allow him to reclaim some of his 13-point deficit to Norris?
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