Self-critical Norris receiving 'support' from McLaren

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has revealed that the side have a "total process" for supporting Lando Norris, who has grown a tendency to be extremely self-critical.

Particularly since the current ground effect regulations were introduced in 2022, Norris has very often spoken negatively about himself to the media, typically in relation to a mistake during qualifying.

The British driver has made a few notable errors in recent qualifying sessions, with it having been no different at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Friday evening. Whilst Norris secured a strong sixth place on the grid, he accepted that a front row start was on the cards if not for a mistake.

Norris revealed to the media that he made a mistake on his final hot lap at the Bahrain International Circuit, which was conducted on a new set of Soft tyres. Qualifying sixth instead of second or third could be the difference between featuring on the podium on Saturday or not.

Whilst the 24-year-old was self-critical once again after qualifying in Bahrain, he remained more positive than usual after admitting to an error. With that in mind, RacingNews365 asked Stella what McLaren has done over the winter break to make Norris less self-critical.

'Everyone plays a part'

"The work that happens to improve, for instance, in delivering laps, and also the way you react to delivering or not delivering to your expectations is quite vast," Stella said. "It's 360 degrees, he goes from the self-reflection of the driver like understanding when you don't deliver, why?

"And then you have the support from the engineering group, providing the data providing the recollection of all the cases, which was actually a very thorough work over the winter.

"And then you have the support and the link with all the people interacting around the driver, because everyone plays a part when you have to manage a professional athlete and deliver 100% of the performances.

"So it's been a very, like I said, total process. I think with Lando, in particular, we realised that to deliver laps we have to have a certain approach which I don't want to disclose but I think it even has to do with a certain style.

"And when we back off from the style, we kind of lose a little bit the rhythm, I would say, so this was an interesting finding. And we are, you know, these are kind of journeys that never finish. You know like it will be season after season, always a matter of getting better and better."