'Like I have never driven an F1 car': Lando Norris 'visibly' struggling as Oscar Piastri finds edge

McLaren driver Lando Norris has conceded that qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix felt like he had never driven a Formula 1 car before.

Norris did not hide his frustration after qualifying in sixth place on the grid for Monday's grand prix — clocking almost half a second slower than his teammate, Australian Oscar Piastri, who secured his second career pole position.

The current drivers' championship leader will start from their worst qualifying result so far this season after a wheelspin in sector one cost him time on his final flying lap that he could not recover.

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Norris also underperformed in China when he qualified third fastest behind Piastri and Mercedes' George Russell.

While McLaren's MCL39 is widely regarded as the fastest challenger this season and showed strong signs in the slow and medium-speed corners at the Bahrain International Circuit, Norris has not been able to extract the car's full potential during qualifying.

"I feel like I've just never driven an F1 car before. I'm struggling a lot, I don't know why. I need to try and find some answers," Norris told media afterward.

"No big complaints. The car's amazing. The car's as good as it has been all season, which is strong.

"Just I've been off it all weekend. I don't know why. Just clueless on track at the minute. I don't know. I just need a big reset; that's all.

"I just don't know how to approach it. I can't figure it out. Every time I try something, it's good for one session, and then it's the wrong thing for the next session because the wind's changed, and I just can't flow with the car. And when I can't flow, I'm just not very quick.

"I've just got to work on myself. I can't fault the team and the car is the best by a long way. But clearly I'm just not clicking at the minute."

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella remarked that Norris is failing to fire in qualifying as he is still grappling with certain handling characteristics with the MCL39.

"Lando is a very fast driver, a naturally fast driver, with an incredible race-craft," he said.

"It's more a phase, I think, when it comes to Q3 [and] putting together the lap, that hasn't worked very well recently, but this is a short phase.

"He is just now in this temporary phase in which, while pushing the car to the limit, there's a few things that don't go exactly as he expects, and when you go for the extra 0.1 secs in Q3, this becomes more visible.

"We understand what it is. It will just require a bit of adaptation from Lando himself and some adaptations from the team. But I think the understanding is good, and we are very optimistic that this will be resolved."

Stella said the issue does not plague Norris in races as he is not pushing the car as hard for as long.

"This doesn't affect the race pace," he said.

"Already in practice, Lando has shown a very strong lap in the race run simulations, so I'm really looking forward to seeing Lando finding his way back to the front of the pack."

McLaren outshone its rivals in the opening practice sessions, with Norris besting practice one and Piastri topping practice sessions two and three.

But it was when it mattered most that Piastri executed a near-flawless flying lap.

Reinforcing the sublime effort, Piastri achieved his fastest lap despite having the lowest top speed of all the drivers.

This was the result of a high-downforce set-up that compliments the MCL39, which can be costly on the long straights of Bahrain but the trade-off still pays off on the track.

The Bahrain Grand Prix begins at 1am (AEST) on Monday.