The Jeddah recovery drive that could save Norris's F1 title campaign

After a qualifying crash in Jeddah Norris recovered to fourth place in the race

World Championships aren’t always won with a succession of glorious victories – even the best Formula 1 drivers have difficult weekends that at the time seem frustrating and yet also give them a chance to show their true class.

For Lando Norris Jeddah was one such challenge, and his heavy crash in Q3 represented an obvious low point in a season that hasn’t gone entirely to plan for the McLaren driver.

As previously noted on Saturday evening and with the help of his team he quickly turned his focus to how to recover ground in Sunday’s race.

The strategy choice was to start on the hard tyres, run as long as possible, and enjoy some time in clean air at the head of the field after others stopped. It worked out well.

Quickly up to eighth after the first lap tangle between Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda, Norris then passed Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton (after a struggle) on track. He was fifth after his late stop and spell in clean air, and he then passed George Russell to claim another spot. Charles Leclerc, who ran a longer opening stint that McLaren had anticipated, remained just out of reach.

A haul of twelve points was perhaps more than Norris could have anticipated as he climbed from his damaged car in qualifying, and they could prove very valuable by the end of this 24-race season.

Despite losing the championship lead to Oscar Piastri he was in an upbeat mood after the flag, aware that he’d done about as well as he could have expected.

“To finish nine seconds off the lead was a little bit surprising,” he said. “So it showed our pace was very good. Mainly considering the clean air around here, it's just a dream. That little stint as soon as Charles boxed my pace was very good.

“Of course, I was not quite as quick as the leaders on new tyres. But clean air around here is beautiful, so I made the most of it. Charles just did a very good stint on the medium and therefore I didn’t have enough of a tyre delta comparing to him.”

Now he just has to get his head round qualifying, in which Piastri is supreme at the moment: “My Sundays I’m pretty happy with, they’ve been pretty strong. Sunday’s pace has been good. I have the confidence, the pace is there. But I make my life too tough on Saturday.”

It was a good job too by McLaren boss Andrea Stella and his engineering team, both to come up with the strategy and also to keep themselves and more importantly Norris focussed on the job at hand rather than dwelling too much on his costly crash.

“The short version is a great recovery by Lando,” said Stella when I asked him about Norris’s race.

“We had long discussions about the starting tyres. We elected to go on the hard tyres because we were hoping that, even if for a brief window, but we could have some possibility to exploit the pace of the car.

“I think on Friday, we saw that Lando was the fastest driver in terms of long run and race pace simulation. So we wanted to make sure that we were in condition to exploit this. And in a way, this was a good decision by Lando and the strategy guys.”

Stella said the race went pretty much to plan, although he acknowledged that the tussle with Hamilton could have cost third place.

“It actually unfolded pretty much like when you do your simulations on the paper, pretty much that was the case,” he said. “But at the same time, I think for a podium finish today, we would have needed not to lose the time with Hamilton.

“Obviously, Hamilton is Lewis Hamilton. He knows very well how to race, and for a couple of laps, he managed to pass Lando. And I think this cost us the time that ultimately means that we could not give a go at trying to overtake Leclerc.

“At the same time, Leclerc and Ferrari, they were very fast, well done to Ferrari on their first podium. Very deserved, in a way, by the race pace that they exhibited, especially at the end of the first stint. That was quite impressive, because we didn't think that the medium tyres could behave like that.

“But in a way, he also gave us the confidence that the final stint of Lando would have been strong, and indeed it was strong. There was not much degradation. This allowed him to pass Russell, but ultimately, I think the time lost with Hamilton, and the fact that Leclerc had such a strong pace, meant that he couldn't recover to the podium.

“And yet great recovery, important points for the championship, and also, I think, important for Lando's morale. It shows his race craft is absolutely brilliant.

“And like he said in the in-lap, we just have to polish a little bit the Saturdays, and we will have fun.”

Norris has talked a lot about not feeling comfortable in the 2025 car, and has suggested that changes made relative to the previous model have not worked in his favour.

Intriguingly McLaren is yet to fully ascertain exactly how that has played out, as technical director performance Mark Temple admitted on Friday in Jeddah.

“It's an interesting point, and it's one that we've been discussing a lot with Lando,” he said when I asked him about Norris’s struggles. “Of course, he's an extremely talented and quite finely-tuned driver and athlete. He's very sensitive to the car, and that shows in his performance.

“We know when we changed with the car, but working out what the contribution to that lack of little bit of feeling completely dialled in, it's hard to know. So that's something we're discussing at length, of him, looking at the data, understanding the changes we've made.

“And it's very much there's nothing obvious that you can say, yeah, that's something we need to change. We need to really get into the detail and then take a very considered, careful approach to make sure we don't a throw away performance from the car or do something which actually makes it harder for him.”

So can Norris adapt or does the car have to be adjusted?: “There's two different parts. We've obviously had a look at the last couple of races there some minor changes we made, which may help, but I think it's also for him to look at the driving and understand himself how the car behaves, so that he can adapt to it.”

After a hectic five races in six weekends the break after Jeddah gives Norris a chance to take stock. Next stop is Miami, where McLaren’s current run of success was kickstarted by his first win. Can he bounce back there?