A frustrated Lando Norris is confronting an unfamiliar challenge in 2025: underperforming in the one area where he’s traditionally shone brightest – qualifying.
The McLaren driver, long regarded as one of the strongest one-lap specialists on the grid, finds himself outqualified more often than not by teammate Oscar Piastri this season, and he’s openly searching for answers.
After being the benchmark at McLaren on Saturdays for several years, Norris is now trailing Piastri 4–3 after seven rounds in 2025.
Even though he recovered to finish ahead of the Aussie at Imola, where he qualified fourth compared to Piastri’s pole, Norris remains frustrated by his performance during the all-important grid-setting sessions.
“I just know that I can do more,” Norris admitted to Channel 4. “Until I’m delivering my potential every weekend then I’m not going to be over the moon.”
From Strength to Struggle: A Qualifying Mystery
What makes the issue more puzzling is how sudden the shift has been. Norris, known for extracting the maximum over one lap, now finds his trademark Saturdays slipping from his grasp.
“I’m confident, I know what I can achieve, I know that I’ve got the speed, I’m not worried about any of that,” he said. “I’m just worried about delivering it when it needs to be delivered. And that’s on Saturdays at the minute.”
For the first time in his Formula 1 career, Norris is facing the prospect of losing a season-long qualifying battle to a teammate—something he’s never done before. He’s not hiding from it, and he’s not making excuses. But the root cause remains elusive.
“Over the past few years, Saturdays have been mine,” he acknowledged. “They’ve been my strength for many, many years. This year, with the car changing a little bit, with the tyres changing, for some reason it’s drifted away from me.
Read also: Have the FIA’s shadowy Imola TDs curbed McLaren’s momentum?
“I’ve got to work it out – and it’s taken time and it’ll take more time – why it’s a little bit more tricky for me to get the lap time out of it and why it’s just not clicking and why I’m just not seeing green [sectors] as often.”
Despite his Saturday strugges, Norris has still managed to deliver on race day. His back-to-back second-place finishes in Miami and Imola are a testament to his underlying pace and racecraft – even if Sundays are having to make up for what Saturdays are lacking.
©McLaren
“Some difficulties, some things are not easy at the minute. But when you have a Sunday like [Imola], when you have Sundays like Miami and things where you can come back through and you show that you’ve got good pace, they’re always reassuring.
“So I’m not worried about my speed. I’m just taking a bit of time to understand why my Saturdays are not coming through.”
With the clock ticking, Norris and McLaren are diving deep into data, chasing the setup tweaks or mental reset needed to restore his qualifying dominance.
Another underperformance in Monaco could spell disaster, and Norris knows it. His mission is to make purple sectors light up again – and fast.
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Norris baffled by lost qualifying edge: ‘It’s drifted away from me’ F1i.com.
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