Lando Norris has admitted he is making hard work of his Formula 1 title challenge.
After starting the season as the championship favourite, he won the Melbourne opener but has since slipped behind his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri in the pecking order.
Piastri has now taken two back-to-back wins in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to move to the top of the table and is 10 points clear of Norris after five race weekends.
Norris finished fourth in Sunday's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after crashing out during qualifying to start 10th on the grid.
The error meant he was always unable to fight Piastri for the win, and he says he needs to start cutting out the mistakes.
He said: “It's the best we could have done today. Of course, a shame to miss out on a podium.
“I make life tough for myself, especially when it's a race like that, it would have been a much easier, a lot more chilled just to drive out the front. I got to help myself out a little bit and have better Saturdays.”
Norris has also hit back at suggestions that his McLaren holds a superior pace advantage over the rest of the field, claiming that Max Verstappen’s Red Bull is just as fast in race trim.
He added: “Red Bull are just as quick in qualifying. They're just as quick as us in the race.
“Just because we're quick in practice, people just keep coming up with all this this crap.
“We don't believe we're much ahead as it shows. I think probably Max was the quickest out there today, so we have work to do.
“People keep saying that we're the best, we're the quickest, blah blah blah, but it's just because we show a bit more pace in practice.
“We don't have anything left when he gets to qualifying, but that's our way of doing things. That's how we feel we optimise things. If we didn't do it that way, we'll be even further back.
“I'm happy with the work we're doing, people just need to recalibrate that. We have a great car and I'm probably the quickest on average but clearly not enough.”
