Norris insists self-criticism helps him achieve more

For one of the most upbeat, smiling people in the Formula 1 paddock, Lando Norris' tendency to be brutally harsh and self-critical on his own performances has surprised and baffled many.

Even his boss, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, has said in the past that Norris "just seems very harsh on himself" and would benefit by giving himself a break when he makes mistakes.

But Norris himself sees the situation very differently, and believes that the unflinching hard look he's able to give himself and his latest performances is a core part of his strength.

"As much as I get annoyed with myself on Saturdays at times and people are like, ‘you shouldn’t beat yourself up’ and all of that stuff, a lot of my best performances come then on that next day”," he told Motorsport.com.

"It doesn’t affect me when I go and drive the next day," he insisted in an exclusive interview with the website. "I’m like, ‘Oh, I still just messed up Saturday’,”

• Read also: Norris loyal to McLaren but must keep ‘options open’, says Brundle

Last year saw Norris clinch his joint-best championship result so far in his F1 career, closing out the season in sixth place with a total of seven podiums.

That's despite a dreadful start to the season when the MCL60 was not fit for purpose, and only started to become competitive from the Austrian GP onwards as upgrade packages became available.

Norris said that without his mistakes in qualifying, he “should have fought for two pole positions and potentially two victories”.

An error in his final Q1 in Mexico after a fuel system check left him starting the race from P19, while a mistake on his final lap in qualifying at Abu Dhabi cost him a shot at pole.

“I’m so s**t sometimes” was his self-assessment over the McLaren team radio after a track limits mistake in qualifying in Qatar, but Norris insisted that he had never meant the comment to be taken seriously.

“Just because I say it and things, it doesn’t mean that," he explained. "I think a lot of people have different opinions on it, but I’ve always been that way.

“Since karting, I’ve always been like that. It’s the way I got brought up and it’s the way I’ve developed into being the driver that I am today," he continued.

"Maybe it’s not the best thing, and I do get just very frustrated and down over a lot of it," he acknowledged. "But it's just because I care about doing a good job and trying to deliver for the team.

“So I do it, not that I just purposely try to do it, but because it’s just the way that I work best, and it’s the way that I’m able to bounce back best.

"I’ve always just been very honest when I think I’ve done a good job and bad job," he said. "It was clear that there’s places I need to work on and places I didn’t always deliver as much as I should’ve done."

Norris said that his focus was always on "how do I bounce back the next day and turn up on Sunday with the kind of clear mindset of, ‘Okay, I’m starting in this position, how can I do my best job from here?’

"There’s also a lot of cases of once that did happen, how did I come back from that and overcome that the next day?" he added. “Which was generally the letdowns on a Saturday and making up for it on a Saturday.

"I think I did exactly that," he concluded, adding that those events were "actually turned out to be some of my better races."

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