Lando Norris still believes he’s “the best at the minute” despite his recent F1 qualifying struggles.

Norris lost the lead of the 2025 F1 drivers’ championship after ꦡhis fourth-place finish at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The McLaren dri⛦ver’s chances of victory were ruined by a crash at the start of Q3.

This mistak❀e came after an error-strewn Bahrain Grand Prix, where Norris finished third.

Norris could only qual൲ify sixth after a disastrous qua🍒lifying session.

He then received a five-second ♓time penalty for misjudging his grid position, while his race craft against Charles Leclerc was unimpres🔜sive.

Norris remains confident in his o🌄wn abilities, however.

“I’m not surprised because of all the ♉mistakes I’ve made over the last few Sa♌turdays,” Norris said after losing the championship lead.

“My Sundays, I think I’m pretty happy with – thꦛey’ve been pretty strong. All of my Sundays, the pace haꦰs been good.

“I have the confidence that the♐ pace is there, and I feel like I’m the be✃st at the minute, but I make my life too tough on Saturday.

“I’m making myself work for it; it makes my Sundays a little๊👍 bit more fun at times.

“I gotta work on my Saturdays, and if 𓂃I can work on my Saturdays, I’m confident I can get back to where I was.”

Team Norris still playing the team game

Despite his main rival for the championship behind his teammate, Norris’ side of the garage was still 🥃keen to play the 🍸team game in Saudi Arabia.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella revealed that Norrisꦜ’ engineer - Will Joseph - advised Piastri’s engineer when it came to overtaking on track

“You have given me the opportunity to tell you a story,” Stella explained. “The story is that Lando’s race engineer proactively told Oscar’s race engineer that we struggled to pass Lewis because we tried twice at Turn 27, and he passed⛎ us back into Turn 1.

“So we made sure Oscar knew that, and ℱhe give it a go directly 🐼into Turn 1. I was very proud that I didn’t need to prompt anything; I was just a spectator to an example of the great team spirit we have at McLaren.

“Well done to Will Joseph and Tom Stallard and the team, but I wanted to praise the mechanics and Charlie Hooper, who leads the operation in the garage, as we needed toꦐ change pretty much all the parts [on Norris’s car] apart from the chassis a♊nd power unit.

“There is always a bit of nervousness when you have to change so many parts and check everythi🤪ng, but it ga𒅌ve Lando the opportunity to go and score important points.”