Lando Norris ready to be ‘more demanding’ of McLaren in title pursuit

Lando Norris admits he may need to be more demanding of his McLaren team and take more risks in his bid to land a first world championship.

The British driver finished second to Max Verstappen at the Japanese Grand Prix last weekend after pitting on the same lap as the race leader.

That led to suggestions that McLaren, with Oscar Piastri pitting a lap earlier in third, could have played a better strategy game to allow Norris to jump Verstappen.

Norris says there was no decision that would have been a guarantee of taking the lead but acknowledged that there are moments where he would like to roll the dice more.

“Of course we were not happy after last weekend – we were happy because we had second and third, a great result as a team still,” Norris said.

“But could it have been better and could we have potentially taken more risks and been a bit more attacking as a team? Yes.

“So it’s a review into these weekends to maybe be a bit more attacking at times.

“I am here to win races and not settle for second, so definitely from my side, I would love to kind of kind of go back and redo things with a slightly more aggressive approach.

“I do know deep down that it’s a long season and sometimes points on the board is better than taking unnecessary risks.”

McLaren continue to juggle the title aspirations of both Norris – who leads four-time world champion Max Verstappen by one point after three races – and Piastri.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said after last weekend that McLaren are putting themselves in a difficult position by attempting to keep both drivers in the title hunt.

Piastri is 13 points behind Norris ahead of this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, with the top three having won one race each so far this season.

Norris is happy with the decisions that his team are making and believes together they will take the right options as they chase the title.

“It’s never just down to me. Of course, I’ll maybe push my preferences more or I can be a bit more forceful and can be more demanding with certain things and in certain cases,” Norris added.

“I also always know that the team have the best picture of the whole race, better than any other driver.

“But I also have the best feeling of the car, how overtaking might be. You just need harmony between you and your race engineer and strategy team.

“It might be that I need to potentially be more demanding at times and more pushing of the team, but it is just getting the dynamic right between that risk-reward factor.

“There was no guarantee for everything so, however much people want to talk and say things and say how bad of a job we did, I disagree and I stand always by our decisions as a team.

“I have a lot of trust and faith that we always have our best interest at heart.”