Lando Norris pinpoints ‘number one’ thing to improve after F1 summer break

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Lando Norris has cast a downbeat figure in recent races knowing he was close to winning his second Formula 1 Grand Prix.

Despite having the car to challenge for wins on merit at McLaren, a series of unforced errors and strategy miscalculations have ultimately prevented Lando Norris from adding another win to his tally.

Even though McLaren has scored the most points of any team heading into the summer break, they have only managed to win two races so far this season with Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Former F1 driver Damon Hill believes much of Norris’ mistakes are due to the pressure from Piastri, as the Australian continues to improve his consistency each race.

Discussing where he needs to improve the most in an interview with F1.com, Norris felt there was one key area where he has made too many mistakes.

Lando Norris identifies the main area of mistakes

Having missed out on wins in Spain, Austria, Silverstone and Hungary, Norris should be theoretically closer to Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship than 78 points.

The DNF in Austria was the biggest blow to his title assault while McLaren was left rueing its mistakes at the British GP which handed the win to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and the advantage to Verstappen.

Norris wants to focus on one key area to improve after the summer break to ensure that he can extract the most out of each race weekend.

“Starts is the number one [thing to improve]. Starts have put me on the back foot, I’ve made a few too many mistakes and I’ve lost too many opportunities from that side. Just a couple of decisions during races, things like that,” said Norris.

“It’s not something where I need a complete step back and I need to recreate something. It’s a subtle change that can have a big effect. I’m fighting against the best, therefore I need to be at my best. At the minute I haven’t been – so a good time for me to review and try and improve.”

Lando Norris’ poor F1 starts record

Starts in F1 are critical because they can be where critical time is lost spent behind another car in the ‘dirty air’ before a pit stop.

If you are sat behind a slower car it hurts the tyres more, bringing forward your pit stop and scuppering any chances of catching the cars ahead.

On all five occasions that Norris has started from pole position he has failed to keep his lead and win the race. This includes his first pole at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix and the race in Spain this year, when he also blamed a bad launch on Max Verstappen’s race-winning pass.

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He also lost the race lead from the pole in the Chinese GP Sprint race at Shanghai and during last year’s Sprint at the Brazilian GP weekend at Interlagos.

McLaren identified a ‘small glitch’ during Norris’ start in Hungary which contributed to his poor launch off the line, however, Piastri still eventually outclassed him on pace and at the subsequent event in Belgium.