McLaren have noticed Lando Norris is constantly ‘surprised’ by one aspect of his 2025 car after latest errors

The 2025 Formula 1 season was tipped to be Lando Norris’ year, with McLaren boasting the fastest package. However, things are now quickly starting to shift towards teammate Oscar Piastri.

After winning the season opener in Melbourne from pole position, Norris has qualified on the front row once in the last four races. During that time, teammate Piastri has already claimed three wins.

Saturday has proved a key weakness for the Brit in 2025. In Shanghai, he qualified down in sixth for the Sprint before managing a more respectable third for Sunday’s race.

He repeated his P6 feat in Bahrain, getting outqualified by the Alpine of Pierre Gasly while Piastri took pole and won the race. At the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Norris hit the wall at turn four during Q3, leaving him 10th for the race.

F1 fans mocked Norris for his accident as they pilled in on another example of the 24-year-old ‘bottling’ the championship. The McLaren driver did produce a solid comeback to finish P4, with Jamie Chadwick noticing Norris didn’t beat himself up after his crash in qualifying.

The Brit is notorious for being self-critical, and this change in approach will have helped. However, errors from Norris are persisting, some of which are down to the nature of the McLaren.

McLaren have noticed Lando Norris keeps being ‘surprised’ by the MCL39’s behaviour when pushed in qualifying

Despite it being the fastest car on the grid, Norris has been consistently lamenting how difficult the MCL39 is to drive, with there being some noticeable problems.

Norris has the same issue as Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, in that the McLaren is not good in traffic – as evidenced by Jeddah, as he found it difficult to make progress in the dirty air. But the biggest issue for the Brit is qualifying, with the Woking outfit noticing a trend.

Journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm says McLaren have found Norris keeps being ‘surprised’ by the behaviour of the MCL39 when pushed to the limit in qualifying. Speaking via The Race, the issue stems from the car being more difficult to grasp.

“Norris was the favourite for pole and victory, but took what he described as a ‘silly risk’ in Q3, carrying way too much speed into turn four and understeering onto the exit curb, which spat him into the wall.

“McLaren has noticed that Norris keeps being surprised by the behaviour of the car when it’s pushed for the final milliseconds in qualifying, which stems from it becoming a little harder for the drivers to feel and understand.

“But Norris is inducing more errors and not mitigating the risk of the car catching him out as well as Piastri. He can obviously be very quick, but is currently more prone to mistakes and this needs to be toned down.”

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Lando Norris must phase out his mistakes to beat Oscar Piastri in 2025

As Mitchell-Malm rightfully pointed out, while the MCL39 may be a trickier car to understand, errors from Norris are still proving costly. The Saudi Arabian GP marks the first time the Brit has not led the championship, with Piastri taking control.

Norris made several costly mistakes in 2024, which ultimately saw him miss out on the title to Max Verstappen by 63 points. The 24-year-old simply cannot let his errors persist, especially now that his teammate is looking to break free from team orders and fight for the top spot.

Piastri ‘forcefully’ took the number one status from Norris at McLaren with his win in Jeddah. He holds a 10-point lead heading into Miami, with it now being hard to look past him for the title with his current form.

Norris admits he puts ‘too much pressure’ on himself in his bid to become world champion. The 2025 season still has 19 Grand Prix and five Sprint races to go, but it is clear the McLaren star has to improve to beat his teammate.