Lando Norris has acknowledged he may have to be more “demanding” of his McLaren team in certain situations as it navigates an F1 title fight this year.
Norris currently leads the drivers' championship after the opening three rounds of the campaign. The 25-year-old holds a one-point advantage over Max Verstappen in the standings, with the pair winning a race apiece this year.
Verstappen won out last time out in Japan, taking the chequered flag just 1.4 seconds ahead of Norris. The latter acknowledged “risk” would have been needed in order to challenge Verstappen.
When asked by RacingNews365 if this means he will take a bigger role in making key in-race decisions, Norris replied: “It's never something [that is] just down to me.
“Of course, I'll maybe push my preferences more, or I can be a bit more forceful, more demanding with certain things in certain cases.
“I also always know that the team have the best picture of the whole race better than any other driver.
“I also have the best feeling of the car, the tyres, how overtaking might be. You need harmony between you and your race engineer and strategy team.”
Norris highlights need to trust McLaren team
The season marks the first time Norris has been in a position to fight for the title from the start of the campaign.
As he looks to step up his in-race input, Norris highlighted he understands he will have to trust the team on occasions when he is doubtful of its desires.
“It might be that I need to potentially be more demanding at times and more pushing of the team,” he stated.
“It's just getting the dynamic right at the end of the day between that risk-reward factor and knowing how much risk you want to take on the day and how aggressive you want to be.
“So sometimes that's me stepping up and doing it myself, sometimes that comes from the team.
“Maybe it's vice versa. Maybe the team wants to be aggressive, and on that day, for whatever feeling I have, I'm not wanting to be too aggressive.
“It's just working as a team. I think we're doing very well, but [we are] continuing to work on that and getting the most out of one another on the day.”
Also interesting:
Join RacingNews365's Ian Parkes, Sam Coop and Nick Golding, as they reflect on the Japanese Grand Prix and look ahead to Bahrain. Max Verstappen's victory is a major talking point, as is McLaren's serious strategical weakness. Jack Doohan's struggles is also discussed.
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