Lando Norris makes critical admission after McLaren unearth significant issue

Lando Norris is adamant he must deliver in whatever F1 car McLaren provides, having struggled to adapt to the MCL39 so far this season.

The Briton trails Oscar Piastri by just 13 points in the drivers' standings, following the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, but has been outperformed by his team-mate for much of the year.

After Norris won the Australian's home grand prix in Melbourne to start the campaign, the 24-year-old ate away at the 23-point deficit, turning it into an advantage over his three-round win streak which ended at Imola.

The greatest disparity in performance between the pair has come in qualifying, where Norris has made a number of high profile mistakes.

After the grid-setting session at the previous round, in Miami, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained what the Woking squad believes to be the root of the issue, something that appears to be affecting Norris more.

The Italian made reference to a numbness in the front axle of the MCL39, the consequence of which is Norris and Piastri need to judge grip levels on where they were the previous lap, not what the driver is feeling in that moment.

When this theory was put to the 25-year-old, he agreed, providing a light-hearted response.

"Andrea is always right," Norris joked to media including RacingNews365. "Even if he was not my boss, Andrea is always right.

"Andrea is very good at explaining things and getting them across, and he's just always right. No matter what he says, he always ends up being correct in the situation."

'I have no excuses...'

Addressing the situation more seriously, Norris highlighted how the problem had made his life "trickier" this season than last year.

Nonetheless, he maintained the need to get more from himself as the championship contending field continues to thin towards it being an intra-McLaren battle.

"I think it's what I've explained through the season, it's: every driver has different ways of driving cars," Norris told media including RacingNews365.

"I have no excuses, because I also feel like it's my job to drive whatever car I get driven, so I'm not going to have excuses, but I'm going to have reasons at times, but in the end of the day, I just want to drive the best I can.

"I might have days I struggle. I might have days I perform better. No driver is ever satisfied, like I'm still trying to improve myself and we're still trying to improve the car, even though we're winning races, we're second in races, we're dominating races. We still come away at times not happy and expecting more and wanting more.

"So, this is one of the things that's made my life trickier this year than it was last season, and it's not allowing me to get my full potential. But yeah, I need more from the car, and I also know that I need to, at times, do a better job too."