ANALYSIS: How have race starts affected Norris' performance?
McLaren driver Lando Norris has delivered some truly masterful performances so far in 2024, but race starts have hindered his results on multiple occasions. F1Technical's lead journalist Balazs Szabo delivers his latest analysis.
Lando Norris has taken pole position on four occasions so far this year, having been quickest of all in the qualifying session first at Barcelona before securing the first starting position at Budapest, Zandvoort and then at Monza.
Interestingly, he has never managed to maintain the leading position in these four races. At the Spanish Grand Prix, he lost two places at the start to drop back to third. He then showed impressive race speed during his last stint to finish second just seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen.
He delivered a masterful lap in challenging conditions during the Budapest qualifying session, but he was involved in a multi-car battle at the first corner which saw him lose three spots to fall behind to P4. With McLaren having shown commanding performance in the heat of the Hungaroring race, Norris came back to second place to get involved in a fierce intra-team battle, but he eventually finished second.
At Zandvoort, he took pole position with a sensational lap, beating second quickest Max Verstappen by three tenths of a second. However, he lost out to the Dutch driver at the start, but his race speed allowed him to regain the lead and win the Dutch Grand Prix by almost 23 seconds ahead of the three-time world champion.
At Monza, he fractionally beat his team-mate Oscar Piastri to pole position. Although he had a great launch off the line, he applied the throttle slightly too aggressively out of the first chicane. It allowed Piastri to close in on Norris coming into the second chicane and overtake the Briton with an aggressive, but sensational manoeuvre.
Having lost momentum coming out of the second chicane, Norris was then also overtaken by Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc into the first Lesmo corner. The Briton then suffered from graining on his front tyres, and finished the 53-lap Monza race in third place.
Reflecting on his starts, Norris has confirmed that he had been too aggressive at the starts which cost him valuable points in 2024.
“Obviously my starts have not been great. I’ve lost probably a good amount of points off the line and now Turn 1 again, easily a podium or even more.
“There isn’t one reason, it’s just probably trying a bit too hard and paying the price for that. So hopefully, I can come back strong.”
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has revealed that the Woking-based outfit has already carried out a host of analysis to find out how they can improve Norris' starts and opening laps.
"Certainly, we work with Lando, like we work with Oscar [Piastri], to try and see all the opportunities in which we can improve individually, but also collaborate better, to either be more prepared or to use better our abilities and talents.
“I think it doesn’t necessarily change our attitude, but definitely gives us some elements to analyse as to how some of these missed opportunities manifest themselves.
“Like for Lando, for instance, he looks like there are statistically some opportunities that tend to happen in the early stages of the race, so we need to check whether this is for a reason, or it’s just random.
“But like any other athlete or any other driver, I think Lando himself will talk to the team, we like to think ‘What can I do better?’ To make sure we capitalise on the good work we are doing," noted Stella.
