In a sport where risk reaps reward and disaster, Lando Norris is walking a thin tightrope with a canyon beneath him.
Crashing out in Q3 has all but destroyed any chance of Lando Norris retaining the championship lead after the race.
Fighting back from tenth today will be a major task. Even with McLaren’s perceived pace advantage, overtaking at the Corniche Circuit can be challenging at best.
With this crash, Norris now staring down at an abyss of poor performance, but how did he get here, and what are the consequences for the rest of the season?
Lando Norris is own worst enemy?
Norris can sometimes light his fuse of downward performance. Rewind to Brazil 2024, and the cameras picked up Norris on the grid ahead of the race. His eyes were on stalks, and he had a deer-in-the-headlights look about him.
He needed a strong performance to stay in the championship. The race was easily one of his worst, with more mistakes than an episode of Hell’s Kitchen, as Gordon Ramsay aimed expletives at his chefs. He completely fell apart, hitting a metaphorical rock bottom.
However, what followed this nadir in performance strikes an undertone of contradiction. His lights-to-flag victory at Abu Dhabi was flawless, and under the equal pressure as Brazil. In a span of just a few races, Norris went from falling apart to ruthlessly dominated.
The reason behind this phenomenon is actually hidden in plain sight: his race starts. Norris does not do these well, and usually loses places. It has become a hallmark of his time in F1, with commentators, pundits and fans all commenting on it.
Like putting pennies in a jar, these poor starts add up, and weigh on his mind. Norris is refreshingly honest about his weaknesses to the media, promoting good mental health, and raising awareness. But this honesty is now starting to have a negative effect.
It is said that the more an issue spoken about publicly, the less power it has over you. In Norris’s case, this quickly became the opposite, as it is clear his issues are plaguing him more.
Looking back at his performances this season to date, he has buckled in qualifying and lost places in races. This is adding to the penny jar, and this can cause erratic behaviour.
Qualifying in Jeddah yesterday acted as the jar reaching its capacity and overflowing. Dejected, Norris admitted his error, and knows his task became that much harder.
Is the penny jar now empty for Lando Norris?
The crash has not emptied Norris’s metaphorical penny jar; it has merely stopped it from overflowing. His performance in the race will be intriguing to watch, as he will either rise to the challenge and secure a podium, or will cave under the pressure.
Bahrain could answer what McLaren and F1 can expect from Lando Norris today. Norris was erratic, and unpolished at best in Bahrain. Unable to pass George Russell, though not from a lack of trying, he outbraked himself numerous times, and looked ragged.
This version of Norris emerged after a mistake in qualifying, which cost him pole position, starting the race from fifth. A good opening lap brought him back in touch with the front-runners, but he never progressed further before the mistakes began. Once they started, they never stopped. P3 was a lucky result.
Fast-forward a week, and history seems to be repeating itself, but more severely. His qualifying error put him in the barriers. Instead of an open circuit, Norris has to claw his way through the field on a street track, albeit Monaco on steroids.
If Norris has a disaster of a race under the lights in Jeddah, it shows a more serious issue is at hand. The Briton has admitted to struggling with the MCL39 at the start of the season, giving its tricky handling characteristics. But these struggles go beyond that.
Oscar Piastri and title pressures?
Pressure affects us all in different ways. Some of us eat obscene amounts of chocolate. Others will jump out of a plane. Regardless of what option, it’s a coping mechanism, a way to numb the constant thought of what is troubling us.
Numbing is the key word. Numbing is a temporary fix, it does not address or solve the issue. That is arguably Norris’s major issue. He is numbing pressure away from the track, not tackling it head on.
Norris is now under significant pressure from team-mate Oscar Piastri, a relaxed and calculated driver that applies a polar opposite approach to the Briton.
Now in a title battle with his teammate with nowhere to hide, Norris is on full display to the world, more so than last year’s battle with Max Verstappen. 2024 was always going to be difficult.
Growing pains in an inaugural championship fight are expected, but those same pains should be ironed out for the following season. However, while Piastri goes from strength to strength, Norris slowly begins to revert to his old ways from early 2024.
Unless Norris begins to address and tackle pressure through uncomfortable conversations with himself, the cycle is doomed to repeat itself. Mistakes will lead to penny jar filling and overflowing, forcing him to get a grip on things until the next error.
This cycle can be beaten, and Norris knows better than anyone that mental health is key to a successful career and personal life. He is in control, and he will eventually win out. Hopefully, it does not come at the cost of the 2025 championship.
