"He's too harsh on himself": F1 pundit urges Lando Norris to not be overtly critical of himself

F1 pundit and former GP2 champion Davide Valsecchi advised McLaren driver Lando Norris not to be "too harsh" on himself after he qualified P6 at the Bahrain GP qualifying session. The British driver, who is currently leading the championship, had a disappointing qualifying session at the Sakhir International Circuit and had no answers to his teammate Oscar Piastri's pace over one lap.

The 25-year-old and his Aussie teammate were up against it in the final few minutes of the Q3 session after Mercedes driver George Russell set a quick lap that put him in P1 provisionally.

Although Piastri had a response over the lap and managed to beat it by over a tenth of a second, Lando Norris had no such pace and failed to improve his final lap and finished in P6 to the surprise of many.

In his post-quali interview, the five-time F1 race winner was left perplexed by the lack of pace and told F1.com:

“I was just slow. I’ve been slow this whole weekend, to be honest. Nothing too surprising, honestly. I’ve just been off it. I feel like I’ve just never driven an F1 car before. I’m struggling a lot, I don’t know why. I need to try and find some answers.”

Valsecchi, who was doing punditry with F1TV, found McLaren driver's response too self-critical and said:

“He’s too harsh with himself. too much, he’s a great driver. He missed a quali, but he has the chance to recover tomorrow. He took it personally because the last lap in the quali you feel the pressure and having a mistake in the first part makes you feel dying the car but it's too much."

Lando Norris will start the race in P6, just a position ahead of his title rival and Red Bull driver Max Verstappen.

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McLaren team boss defends Lando Norris after a poor qualifying in Bahrain

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella stated that Lando Norris was a "fast driver" but believed that he was going through a "short phase" of being unable to put in a fast lap in Q3 of qualifying sessions consistently.

As per BBC, the Italian reflected on his charge's P6 in Sakhir and said:

"Lando is a very fast driver, a naturally fast driver with an incredible race-craft. It's more a phase, I think, when it comes to Q3, putting together the lap, that hasn't worked very well recently, but this is a short phase.

"He is just now in this temporary phase in which, while pushing the car to the limit, there are a few things that don't go exactly as he expects, and when you go for the extra 0.1secs in Q3, this becomes more visible."

Land Norris had never qualified in the Top 5 at the Bahrain GP since making his debut on the grid in 2019.