Norris 'paying the price' as he admits to struggles of 'not getting the most out of the car'

McLaren driver Lando Norris has come out and said that he is "paying the price" by "not getting the most out of the car" with the struggles that he has gone through so far in 2025.

The Brit currently sits second in the drivers' championship standings, ten points off his teammate Oscar Piastri in P1, who has won three out of the five races this season.

After impressively winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to end the 2024 season and seal the constructors' championship for McLaren, many saw Norris as the championship favourite, backing that up with another fine win to start the season at the Australian Grand Prix.

However, since then, the 25-year-old has had real struggles with his papaya-coloured car, repeatedly stating that it does not suit his driving style, forcing him to compensate, leading him to struggle in qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix and then crash one race week later in qualifying at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, hugely critical of himself afterwards.

Lando Norris took his first race win in F1 at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix, and he will hope the race in Florida this weekend can turn his fortunes around

Norris "has to consciously think" while driving his McLaren

“I'm not able to get the most out of the car as I would like," Norris started by saying while talking to The Race F1 podcast.

"It's complicated, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that people just have no clue about and don't get to see.

"You cannot afford to lose a hundredth, two hundredths, or three hundredths of a second. You have to push to the limit, and if you want to push to the limit, you need to feel everything. You need to feel that you're on the limit of braking, turning, cornering, and exiting.

"Especially when you're going up against Max [Verstappen], when you're going up against Oscar [Piastri], when you're going up against George [Russell], Charles [Leclerc] - these are all guys trying to do a similar thing," the Brit continued.

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Verstappen now sits just two points behind Norris in the championship, with the Brit on 89 points after the first five races of the season as he struggles to find the consistency he had last season.

"As soon as you have a little bit of a mismatch and things aren't reacting as you think they should, and you're not able to predict the understeer or the oversteer, you're having to think. And as soon as you have to consciously think, you're losing hundredths of a second or thousandths of a second.

"The more precision you need, the more on top of the car you've got to feel, and that's an area that I felt I was very good at the end of last season and really understood. I'm not able to be as on it as I was at the end of last year, and therefore, I pay the price, in either some big mistakes or some lock-ups or different things. I'm not able to be as precise as I need to be, and that's costing me," a dejected Norris concluded.

This article was written in collaboration with Cas van de Kleut