Saudi Arabian GP: Lando Norris hopes to overcome his ‘silly mistake’ in qualifying

Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Corniche Circuit is known as one of the tracks where drivers need to be spot on given the very small margin for error, and Saturday’s qualifying session saw quite a few close calls — and one driver who ended up on the wrong side of a “mistake.”

Lando Norris headed into the final corner during Q1 and simply tapped the concrete wall with his left front tire. That contact broke the steering arm, knocking out his steering and landing the MCL60 car in the garage for repairs. The McLaren driver said after qualifying that “it pretty much was done by the end of the session,” and if Norris’s time had been good enough to push him into Q2, he would’ve been ready.

It wasn’t, and Norris — one of the sport’s most highly regarded young talents — will start P19 in Sunday’s race.

Though McLaren has admitted its car isn’t up to snuff, Norris took full responsibility for what he called a “silly mistake” on “probably one of the easiest corners on the track, in terms of judgment.” It’s a wide-angled, open left-hander, and Norris said there were “no excuses” for his “misjudgment.”

Despite starting on the back row of the grid, Norris said Saturday he feels he can move up the field on the high-speed circuit, voicing that he’s “confident we have a reasonable car.” It boils down to the MCL60’s pace, which seems to be better in Saudi Arabia compared to how it performed in Bahrain. Norris’s teammate, rookie Oscar Piastri, made it to the final round of qualifying on Saturday and will start P8.

However, the tight confines of the Jeddah street circuit limit opportunities to pass, and Norris said the particulars of the MCL60 may not help. One of the car’s bigger weaknesses is aerodynamic efficiency. “The ratio between downforce and drag is not as high as we would like,” team principal Andrea Stella said Saturday.

Jeddah’s track is grippier than Bahrain’s, and Stella said teams “rely less on aerodynamic load.” The tires tend to have more grip on this circuit, meaning the cars have better traction, and this impacts how effectively drivers can maintain control through the corners. There is still an upgrade coming in Baku, which the team hopes will push them toward their 2023 goal of finishing in the top four.

“It’s just been below expectation and below our own targets,” Norris said in Saudi Arabia. “Simple as that.”

But his optimism remains given how the track’s tight nature tends to cause crashes, making virtual safety cars (and actual ones) a safe bet. These can bunch up the field, and it can be easier to gain positions on the restart, perhaps more than one spot. But these essentially give teams an easier pit stop, but it boils down to the right strategy.

In 2021, Norris was in sixth before a safety car was deployed for Mick Schumacher’s wreck. McLaren decided to pit him for fresh tires whereas they had his teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, stay out. But then the race was red flagged because the barrier needed to be repaired, giving Ricciardo and others a free pit stop because they could change tires. Norris was on the wrong side of this, but it’s an example of how drivers from the back of the grid can benefit. Chaos ensued through the remainder of the race.

“A repeat of 2021, I think it was, would be nice,” Norris said Saturday. “But of course, you always need a little bit of luck every now and then.”

The team will be looking to record a better Sunday finish than what happened in Bahrain when Piastri retired early and Norris had to pit multiple times, both experiencing different issues. McLaren is still “optimistic” about the season, Norris said, as they “set the high targets because that’s what we want to achieve.”

(Photo: Eric Alonso/Getty Images)