McLaren needs to “provoke” itself in chase for more F1 wins

Lando Norris says McLaren has learned it needs to “provoke” itself more if it is to avoid the small mistakes that have cost it victories in recent Formula 1 races.

The Briton is coming off the back of an especially frustrating Canadian Grand Prix where two decisions around pitstops – one under safety car conditions and one not – meant a shot at victory slipped through his grasp.

But McLaren is also facing up to the fact that other key calls or small performance improvements at Imola and Monaco could have swung things more in its favour rather than handing the opportunity to rivals.

Speaking ahead of the Spanish GP, Norris said that both he and McLaren had conducted a deep dive into the events of Montreal and have agreed on some key changes in their approach.

And front and centre of that is in being better prepared for unforeseen circumstances, with team and drivers challenging each other even more to ensure that there was no room for error.

“We reviewed it a lot. The team reviewed it. I reviewed it,” said Norris about the Canadian GP.

“We listened to radios, and all those kinds of things.

“There was nothing like, ‘Oh, we’ve clearly messed up. We’ve done something wrong’. But it [not stopping when the safety car came out] was still a tricky decision.

“We simply should have been a bit little bit more prepared. I should have simply had the ‘if safety car [comes out] box’ call, because, at the same time, from my side, I don’t know how much rain there is going to be. I’m getting told there’s rain, and so I’m judging a lot of my feelings and decisions off what the team are telling me.

“So, it’s a little bit from their side, a little bit from my side, in provoking or giving more feedback – those kind of things.”

Norris feels that McLaren does not need to do things dramatically different. Instead, he feels that with such tiny margins separating teams now, it is the details that are critical – and it is the small things that the squad has to tidy up.

“It’s not big changes,” he said. “It’s not like you have to change anything drastically. It’s just one more question, or it’s just one more little decision that we’ve got to kind of make.

“It’s very small things, but they just have very big consequences, like we saw. Really, I’m happy with everyone. I’m happy with the team and…