Norris Confides He Was Hoping For Better Progress At McLaren

Friday, 15 March 2024 at 16:30

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During the second round of the 2024 season in Saudi Arabia, Lando Norris evaluated the development progress his team has made throughout the winter.

McLaren made the most significant progress of all ten teams throughout 2023. The Papaya team went from last place in the Championship to fourth at the end of the season.

This immense step forward gave hope to Lando Norris, who even extended his contract with the British team beyond 2025 before the start of this season.

However, the first race in Bahrain revealed that McLaren didn't make much more progress in direct comparison to the top five teams throughout the winter break. As reported by Sky Sports, Lando Norris said during the second Grand Prix weekend of the season:

"I think we've made some good steps in many areas, just pure development steps like every team would be making, but in terms of us as a McLaren and characteristics we've had as a McLaren car, definitely not as much as I wanted and was hoping for over the winter."

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In Bahrain, Norris crossed the line in P6, 48.458 seconds behind the race leader - Max Verstappen, and in Jeddah, he finished in P8, 45.708 seconds behind the Red Bull driver.

"So we've still got a lot of work going on to try to tackle these areas because they're not just areas that will make me be happier to drive the car, but it will allow me to extract more time out of the car, be more consistent, and just to make the car quicker in general."

Some aspects of McLaren's car are apparently working as the team hoped for. But in general, Norris asserted he is happy with where his team is at the moment.

"So it's kind of a win, win, win if we can improve in these areas, but that's obviously proving very difficult to do. So am I completely satisfied with that? No. But am I happy with the progress that we made over the winter in general? Yes."