McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has admitted that Lando Norris ‘doesn’t have’ the ability to internalise his frustrations and self-criticisms. The British racer was visibly distraught after qualifying sixth at the Bahrain Grand Prix. After McLaren showed terrifying pace during the three free practice sessions at the Sakhir International Circuit, the Woking-based squad looked to be a sure bet for a front-row lockout in qualifying. However, while team-mate Oscar Piastri delivered the goods with a pole position, Norris was only sixth-fastest.

“No big complaints,” the 25-year-old explained after stepping out of the cockpit. “The car's amazing. The car's as good as it has been all season, which is strong. Just I've been off it all weekend. I don't know why. Just clueless on track at the minute. I don't know. I just need a big reset, that's all." Norris went on to add: "I just don't know how to approach it. I can't figure it out. Every time I try something, it's good for one session and then it's the wrong thing for the next session because the wind's changed, and I just can't flow with the car.

“And when I can't flow, I'm just not very quick. I've just got to work on myself. I can't fault the team and the car is the best by a long way. But clearly, I'm just not clicking at the minute."

This isn’t the first time that Norris’ self-critical approach has made headlines. The Brit regularly called out his own race starts during his 2024 title battle with Max Verstappen and blasted his performances when errors cost him points. Some of his rivals, including the Red Bull driver and team-mate Piastri, have not made similar comments.

According to Stella, this is simply part of the Bristol-born driver’s personality. "As you say, Lando is often quite self-critical and transparent in a way, which is a stylistic aspect," he said after qualifying in Bahrain.

"There are, I'm sure, drivers which are equally self-critical, but they keep it for themselves, and they put a little bit of a screen between them and the rest of the world. Lando doesn't have this characteristic. He's very naturally honest, I would say, and therefore, he becomes visible when he's disappointed or when he's self-questioning.

"I think in relation to the performance, Lando is a very fast driver, a naturally fast driver with an incredible race craft, and even now that he's been struggling to put together laps in Q3, actually during the weekend he shows this speed.

"In Q1, we saw immediately faster times, and in the FP1 session, he pretty much dominated the session. I think that before here, in pretty much every Q2 session, he was the fastest. So it's more a phase, I think, when it comes to Q3 and putting together the lap that hasn't worked very well recently, but this is a short phase."