Despite leadership optimism at McLaren F1, Lando Norris remains cautious about the team’s chances of an early victory this season, voicing concerns at the Chinese Grand Prix press conference.
Norris is still waiting for his first F1 win, recently becoming the driver with the most podiums in the sport’s history without a Grand Prix win.
McLaren has fallen back in the rankings at the start of the year, even on high-speed tracks like Suzuka where it excelled in 2023.
Norris was thus asked about Stella’s comments at the Chinese Grand Prix press conference this morning.
“Not anytime soon, that’s for sure,” Norris replied bluntly.
“I think we can win but in the right place and at the right time. If we improve the car where we need to. Honestly, there hasn’t been much frustration with Suzuka.”
“Everything went pretty much as expected. I don’t think we did a perfect job and we probably should have finished one place higher potentially, but I don’t think it’s far from the maximum.”
“We’ve been in the same place all season. We were behind Red Bull, Ferrari and a bit ahead of the other two teams (Mercedes and Aston Martin) in the race. That’s exactly how last weekend went.”
“I haven’t been too frustrated. We know the issues, we know what we need to improve, and we know that if we can improve them, Andrea is right from that point of view, if we can, we can win races this year. But that’s a big ‘if’.”
“We need to work hard in some of these areas that have been a major challenge for us over the past few years. Low speeds are not to our advantage. If we manage that, I’m confident we can have some good races.”
McLaren is expected to struggle at Shanghai due to the long low-speed turns.
“The long turns. Just like turn 1… That type of turn is not good for us – like at Zandvoort. It’s that kind of bad experience for us. Shanghai wasn’t a good circuit for us in 2019, but a lot has changed since then. So I’m still optimistic, we can have a good weekend.”
“We have things to try and we are constantly trying to improve this area. This area, we know, is one of our biggest weaknesses. We do well in qualifying, but it’s especially in the race that it becomes a bigger problem for us.”
In qualifying, McLaren has performed well during the first four weekends this year.
“Yes, we are pleased with how the season has started in terms of pure performance. I think we are in a good battle in qualifying with Aston Martin, Mercedes is very close and even last weekend we were ahead of Ferrari. And in the race, we’ve done a good job. Not as good as Red Bull and Ferrari, but we’ve closed the gap and we are ahead of Aston Martin and Mercedes.”
“We are in a good position but winning is still a bit far off.”
Lando Norris Cautious on McLaren’s Early Victory. Lando Norris Cautious on McLaren’s Early Victory
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