Despite a podium finish, Lando Norris leaves Bahrain felling "something's not clicking" as teammate Oscar Piastri closes in.
The youngster has been accused of being too hard on himself, and what was admittedly a messy weekend meant that his self-criticism was even more to the fore.
He pronounced himself "clueless" after the disappointment of Saturday when he qualified sixth, and was equally tough on himself following a race in which there were further mistakes.
Asked at race end how he felt, the answer was instant. "Mixed feelings," he replied. "I think the pace was good. The car's obviously mega, as Oscar showed, but, yeah, just too many mistakes today."
Asked what positives he takes away, he said: "That I finished, probably."
It all began to go wrong before the race had even started when the McLaren driver lined up on the grid out of position, grid resulted in a 5s time penalty that he served at his first pit stop.
"I was too far back," he said. "So I tried to creep forward and go forward and did the opposite.
"First time I've ever done this in my life," he added. "It shouldn't happen. But it did, and I paid the price for it.
"I had the penalty," he continued. "I boxed earlier than everyone else. I had to push more to try and make up five seconds. I just about made it up. But then I'm on all the tyres, much hotter tyres, and kind of paid the price for that again. So just every time I did one thing good, I did two bad, in a way.
"I just kept stopping myself from making as much progress as I should have done today. So I mean, I'm happy that the pace was there... but still just not in the best feeling with the car at the minute."
Asked what he thinks he needs to do, he said: "I wish I knew the answer. I don't have an answer.
"Honestly, even for myself, whether or not I would share it with you guys, I don't know. But I just... you just know when you're an athlete, when you're a driver, whatever it is, you just know when things click, when you feel confident, when you feel comfortable. I'm confident that I have everything I need and I've got what it takes. I've no doubt about that, that I'm good enough and all of those things...
"The car was just mega," he added. "And that's helping me get out of a lot of problems at the minute. But, you know, I'm just nowhere near the capability that I have, which hurts to say.
"I've spent a lot of time, even last night, you know, I left late last night to look into everything and understand, you know, what I'm struggling with, what's not clicking. Trying to figure out, you know, what's changed from last year to this year. Is it me? Is it some of the car? Like, it's complicated, but I'm not doubting myself.
"Even though sometimes it may seem like that, it's just something's not gelling, something's not clicking. And therefore, I just don't feel comfortable when I'm in the car."
Meanwhile, his teammate, starting from pole, cruised to a lights to flag victory, scoring McLaren's first win in what was, we were repeatedly told, is its "second home race", thereby closing to within 3 points.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Manama here.
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