Repeated mistakes are costing Norris and McLaren too many F1 wins

Lando Norris and McLaren are just not going to be Formula 1 title contenders until they cut out the repeated errors they’ve made from potentially winning positions in 2024.

As the team headed down the M40 and M25 from Silverstone to Woking last night, it could rightly look back on its impressive progress since this time a year ago. Ferrari and Mercedes have floundered in this regulatory era, Aston Martin have flattered then fallen – only McLaren has shown sustained progress (albeit from not nailing the rules reset in the first place).

But McLaren should also be reflecting on how there are so many races now where had certain choices been made differently, the orange team might be looking at a striking win tally of six, instead of solely at Norris’s magic Miami triumph.

The memorable Imola finale doesn’t count – Norris nailed the second stint so beautifully but Verstappen’s brilliance made the difference. But in Monaco, had Oscar Piastri strung together all his best sectors at the end in Q3 then he would’ve headed eventual winner Charles Leclerc on the grid, grand prix victory practically assured. Inexperience provides mitigation, however.

In Canada, Norris, while very unlucky with the safety car timing that destroyed his previously well-built lead, might’ve won without staying out an extra lap in his overcut attempt to jump both George Russell and Verstappen. It would’ve been close, but the gap he needed on the Red Bull was fleetingly there.

In Spain, Norris felt Russell’s rocket start made the difference come the end in another thrillingly close fight with Verstappen. But there were also costly slow pitstops and Norris feeling he pushed a tad too hard, too early on his final stint tyres.

Norris and McLaren have come up just short for victory too many times this season

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

And then Austria. While there can be no doubt Verstappen’s over-the-line defence ultimately stopped them both winning, there was a sense in the paddock at Silverstone that Norris’s early attacks betrayed a slight panic – desperation even – to get ahead of such a tough rival.

That centres on his early lunges and picking up a track limits penalty. Contentious that latter aspect certainly was, but Norris had been warned about his strikes and still went full risk immediately, with what appeared to be a critical tyre advantage.

At Silverstone, both Norris and McLaren must share the blame for losing a race against Lewis Hamilton, and later Verstappen again, that they’d done so well to lead in treacherous conditions. All at a venue where home hero expectations mirrored the Red Arrows and were sent skywards by the Silverstone crowd.

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McLaren was left to rue its decision not to doublestack Piastri behind Norris when the second rain shower really started coming down – after they’d been leading for seven laps. Team boss Andrea Stella even felt “Oscar would have been in a really strong position today, at least as strong as Lando, in terms of opportunities to win the race”.

"I hate ending in this position and forever having excuses for not doing a good enough job"
Lando Norris

Then McLaren “wanted to check also with Lando what his preference was” when it came to which compound to plump for on the return to slicks, again per Stella.

But Norris’s team radio reveals that he made the decisive call for softs, only to then question it almost immediately – all with the pitlane entry fast approaching. When Norris then arrived in the pitbox, overshooting his marks contributed to a 4.5s long stop – which alone all but erased the 1.9s lead he’d had before stopping, given Hamilton’s service the lap before was 2.9s.

“I hate it,” Norris said of this latest defeat in parc ferme. “I hate ending in this position and forever having excuses for not doing a good enough job.”

Norris cannot hide his emotions on the British GP podium as another win slips away

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

His demeanour when arriving in the post-race press conference highlighted his devastation.
Norris was there well ahead of Verstappen and Hamilton – his answers to TV crews below clearly much more concise compared to his Spain exuberance or Austria fury. He sat without looking up to the lecture theatre-like room.

McLaren PR support was barely acknowledged. Only at Verstappen’s arrival and their mutual confusion at a paper covering for the FIA-monogrammed carpet below (“would a plate not be better?”, asked Verstappen) raised a smile – their friendship intact after that contretemps a week earlier. In fairness, Norris could turn on his usual friendly charm when the cameras later pointed in his direction.

But this was far from petulance. It’s just another example of how hard Norris takes defeats and his fierce self-reflection on errors.

Many have said he’s too hard on himself. But clearly that has enabled him to become the Verstappen-bothering title contender he feels he already is.

Yet something must surely change if this isn’t going to be his lot in F1 life: a superb trier, who has his golden moments, but ones that are sprinkled through a career that perhaps doesn’t contain the ultimate triumph of a title? Hyperbolic, yes, but based on a real fear right now.

Although he doesn’t acknowledge it, Verstappen managed to adjust his run of mistakes in 2018 to become a title contender just three years later (and his 2020 brilliance is oft forgotten).

Hopefully for Norris this is a similar situation, given Red Bull felt back then those Verstappen errors were coming from a driver loading themselves with pressure. Because Norris’s highs are airforce display worthy themselves in stature – there’s just a lot of loops and swoops between them right now.

Norris had led McLaren's charge to the front, passing both Mercedes cars in the first rain cell, and held onto his lead after switching to intermediates

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Norris told me in Spain that the expectation-relieving Miami win had only had a limited effect in his case – in terms of how that boosted subsequent performances. That he was still making small mistakes trying too hard.

This centred on qualifying and chasing ultimate one-lap performance. But his contemplation that “consciously affecting that and choosing where to place that level of aggression is not easy to do” surely applies to his in-race decisions in those extremely challenging, high-pressure moments too.

Yesterday, Stella insisted that his team’s reflection on this run of near-misses had to “start from the positives” and how far McLaren had come since July 2023. Because if not, Stella added, “from the building side, we're going to be the ones that ‘build and destroy’, ‘build and destroy’ and we'll stay always at the same level”.

If Norris and McLaren can get on a winning run in a season that seems so wide open right now, then the mistakes will be forgotten

“So, this is the responsibility for everyone,” he continued, wise as ever. “While Lando and Oscar don't have responsibility in some of the calls that today we call missed opportunities, we all, drivers included, have the responsibility to keep building. And when you have days in which we have a missed opportunity is the best opportunity to keep building.

“We are racing against the teams that have won championships and championships and they are pretty stable in terms of the people that are there, they are even familiar with this kind of racing at the top in changeable conditions and so on. From this point of view, we are I think more of an under construction site. And we take these near misses... the frustration will go very rapidly. But the opportunity will come soon. So we need to be ready.”

And this is the most important thing for McLaren, Norris and the impressively decisive Piastri (who made his own call to stop for slicks on the same lap as Hamilton and Verstappen to take mediums that ended up being two seconds quicker) right now. Part of that sturdier building must include learning how to get the critical calls right consistently. The art of winning, if you will.

After all, that was what settled the race ahead for Hamilton and Verstappen. They’d been around victory so much the familiarity boosted them when it mattered most at Silverstone. If Norris and McLaren can get on a winning run in a season that seems so wide open right now, then the mistakes will be forgotten and their achievements only amplified.

It wasn't victory, but McLaren is within touching distance of its former heights

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images