"I only ever blamed myself": Lando Norris reveals the roots of his self-critical nature

McLaren driver Lando Norris claimed that he has always blamed himself for his mistakes and never pointed fingers at anyone else. After an excellent performance in the season opener in Australia, it has been a tricky time on the track for the British driver.

The five-time F1 race winner led the drivers' championship ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and looked to extend his advantage over his teammate. But he crashed out of Q3 to start the race from P10 and could only manage a P4 finish to relinquish the lead and fell ten points behind Oscar Piastri.

Norris has often been quite negative about himself and his performances, which have raised several questions regarding his mental approach to racing with several even calling it a weakness.

Speaking with F1.com in an exclusive interview, Lando Norris talked about the stem of this approach and his reason behind pointing the finger at himself for his failures, saying:

“I’m sure if you go through all of my interviews… at times, maybe the obvious one is the car isn’t quick enough, that’s just an underlying fact of F1 at times, but I would never come in and go, ‘The car sucked today, and I drove outstanding’. You’ll never get that from me.

“I think a lot of that is growing up, thinking, and being very reserved and introverted. I always spoke to myself, and I only ever blamed myself. Also, I was lucky that I was always with very good teams, and I always had very good team mates growing up, that I could almost never blame my equipment or people around me. That’s just never been me," he said.

Despite attracting some criticism about his approach, Norris revealed that he would continue with it going into the remaining 19 races of the 2025 season.

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Lando Norris defends his mental approach of blaming himself

McLaren driver Lando Norris stated that he has always used the approach and it has made him who he is, helping him to strive to improve himself on the track.

As quoted earlier, the Somerset-based native reflected and said:

“I’ve always been very hard on myself, because I’ve never been hard on anyone else… I’ve never been hard on my team, my mechanics, the car, the set-up. I’ve always worked on myself more than I’ve ever blamed anyone, let’s say, and that’s just made me into the person that I am."

Lando Norris will return to the scene of his first race win in Miami this weekend to recapture the emotions and spur him on to turn his swindling form around. The Brit has failed to win a race since Melbourne, while Piastri has taken two poles and three race wins at the same time.