Norris's surprising reaction to his big Saudi F1 crash

Until he was reminded of his exact wording by reporters, Formula 1 world championship leader Lando Norris had forgotten he’d called himself a “f***ing idiot” over McLaren team radio just after his Saudi Arabian Grand Prix qualifying crash.

Once reminded of it, he admitted it was a good summary of his view of himself in the moment.

“Makes sense. I agree with it. I should be fighting for pole and I shouldn’t be taking any silly risks like I seem to have done.”

But there were laughs from Norris as he said it, his mood over consigning himself to 10th on the Jeddah grid with a destructive blunder on his first Q3 flying lap a clear contrast to the depths of despair he was in over struggling to sixth on the Sakhir grid a week ago.

When that contrast was put to him, Norris agreed he was “happier” in Saudi Arabia regardless of the qualifying crash.

Last week he didn’t fully understand why he was four tenths of a second and five places behind team-mate and main title rival Oscar Piastri on the Bahrain grid.

This week he’s been quick. His qualifying crash was a relatively small error on corner entry that had substantial consequences because of the nature of the Jeddah layout, kerbs and walls. In Norris’s mind, it’s therefore easier to deal with than him just not being fast enough.

“We’ve tried to work on a few things, I’ve tried to work on my driving. This has got nothing to do with it, this is just a separate mistake,” he said.

Norris spoke earlier in the Jeddah weekend of the psychological work he needed to do to get his season back on course, having not won since the season-opener in Melbourne a month ago.

McLaren is known to have wanted Norris to be less hard on himself as part of that, and has offered support in that process.

On Saturday night in Saudi Arabia, he talked like someone taking that on board - his tone less harsh than his actual words suggested, his comments more a matter-of-fact theoretical rundown of how any driver would naturally be feeling after such an error than raw emotional self-flaggellation of the kind he’s been prone to.

“I shunted, so I’m not going to be proud, I’m not going to be happy, I’ve let myself down, I’ve let the team down,” Norris admitted.

“The guys have got a big job to do now to fix it all. That’s the way it is.

“I agree with what I said [on the radio] but I still look forward to tomorrow and I’ll have to try to make up for today.”

Adequately making up for it in a likely one-stop race - on a track where many drivers feel overtaking is tougher than it may seem - might be a tall order.

Norris also repeatedly intimated that McLaren wasn’t as fast in Jeddah as expected, pointing to Piastri only being second on the grid between Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and George Russell’s Mercedes after a tight pole fight.

“We have a strong car. Clearly not as good as what we would like because we’re not on pole and Max is first and George is only a tenth behind, so it’s not plain sailing at the minute,” said Norris. “So a big job to try to do tomorrow.”

In playing down his own recovery drive chances there, he also seemed to be slightly relieved that he hadn’t necessarily handed Piastri an easy win because his team-mate may well be embroiled in a battle with Verstappen and Russell - though he admitted in his Sky TV interview that to “get close to them is not very realistic, but to try to get to the top five is probably our target”.

There’s a strong chance of Norris losing the world championship lead on Sunday given he’s only three points ahead of Piastri and eight in front of Verstappen going into the race (and Russell’s only six more back from Verstappen). The best-case scenario is probably that he progresses into the top five and Piastri is prevented from winning.

There’s also a worst-case scenario where Piastri clears Verstappen with the superior race pace McLaren is believed to have but Norris gets bogged down in the upper midfield or caught up in some mid-pack mess and there’s a big points swing away from him.

That would be a big test of his more positive mindset’s resilience.