'I'm nowhere near' - Norris opens up on his struggle with McLaren's car

Lando Norris has opened up on his difficulties with McLaren's car that he believes mean he is currently operating "nowhere near the capability that I have" after a difficult Bahrain Grand Prix weekend.

Norris finished third from sixth on the grid in Sunday's Bahrain race to retain a narrow world championship lead, with team-mate Oscar Piastri now his nearest challenger - three points behind - after the Australian delivered a dominant victory from pole.

After mistakes in qualifying had left him five places behind the sister McLaren on the grid, Norris admitted he ultimately fell one place short of his race-day target given "my goal for today was P2".

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That quest for second was compromised by several incidents during the 57-lap race.

Norris collected a five-second penalty for starting the race in front of his grid box and then experienced complications passing rivals in wheel-to-wheel combat.

He had to make two passes on Lewis Hamilton after the mid-race Safety Car, with his first was illegally completed off the track, while he also took several laps to dispatch the other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

Up into third, Norris was then ultimately unable to find a way past George Russell's Mercedes during a tense end to the race.

"I paid the price with mistakes that I shouldn't make," said Norris to Sky Sports F1.

"Otherwise I think the pace was pretty strong.

"Difficult [race]. Whether I would have got George or not [with an extra lap] it doesn't matter, I didn't.

"The positive is I got some points. The negative is we didn't achieve what we should have achieved."

'I'm nowhere near the capability that I have'

Norris went into the season as the title favourite with the bookmakers and most pundits, a status he underlined by winning the opening race in Australia last month.

However, the Briton has not won either of the three grands prix since - of which Piastri has now claimed two and Max Verstappen the other - with it emerging that Norris is struggling to extract the best from McLaren's pacesetting MCL39 car.

"Honestly, I'm surprised I'm achieving anything I'm achieving at the minute with how I feel in the car," he told Sky Sports.

"I'm not comfortable, I'm not happy. I'm not feeling good, so to be getting the results I'm getting at the minute I'm still quite surprised by.

"Just something's not clicking. I don't have an answer."

Speaking in the post-race press conference, Norris continued: "I'm not able to do any of the laps like I was doing last season. I knew every single corner, everything that was going to happen with the car, how it was going to happen. I felt on top of the car.

"This year I could not have felt more opposite so far. Even in Australia, whether or not I won the race, I never felt confident.

"The car was just mega and that's helping me get out of a lot of problems at the minute. I'm just nowhere near the capability that I have, which hurts to say."

Formula 1 completes its first triple-header of 2025 in Jeddah with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix next weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime