Lando Norris issued 'perfection' warning by top McLaren boss

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McLaren CEO Zak Brown has urged Lando Norris to "stop striving for perfection" and relax more into his driving if he is to become F1 world champion this year. Following a near-faultless season-opening weekend in Australia, where Norris won from pole position at Melbourne's Albert Park, the British driver has since made several small errors, which have proven costly. With a quarter of the season now elapsed - six of a record-equalling 24 races - Norris is 16 points shy of championship-leading team-mate Oscar Piastri, who has won four of the last five races following his home event in Australia. Such is Norris' heart-on-sleeve character in assessing his performances, he has often been highly critical of himself, wearing a hangdog expression at times when delivering his verdict. Brown feels Norris should stop being so hard on himself. "He needs to stop striving for perfection," said Brown, speaking to select media, including RacingNews365 . "You talk to any driver, they'll always say they've never done the perfect lap. Just focus on doing the best you can." As to how McLaren can prevent Norris from his perfection search, Brown added: "Well, there are various degrees of perfection. "For me, perfection is doing the best you can, and if you miss that apex by three inches or brake a metre too late, that's going to happen, so I think striving to do the best you can is the best approach.  "At every pit stop, if we do a 1.8-second stop, I bet we could do a 1.78. But don't go into each pit stop saying, 'I want to do 1.78'. Just go into each pit stop and do the best you can. That's a better place to be." Brown 'not worried' by Norris One of the issues Norris has bemoaned is his feeling with the car compared to last year, at the end of which he emerged in a good place. However, the carryover into this season has prompted difficulties for Norris, who has struggled to extract the maximum, leading to the small errors. In contrast, Piastri has had no such concerns with the car. Explaining Norris' position, Brown said: "We have some innovation on the car, so it has a different feel to it. That just requires a slightly different driving technique, which is what he's referencing. But I think he's good. "We have spent some time on the simulator to have a little bit better understanding of what we've done with the car and how that materialises through the steering wheel." Brown is adamant he is "not worried' with Norris's over-sensitiveness with the car. He added: "It was a good innovation, [with] us technically understanding how that kind of comes through the driver's butt, but I think we're in a good place."