This weekend at Imola, Lando Norris thinks McLaren might be even more competitive than they were in Miami.
With his final race in Miami, Norris secured his first Formula One victory, capping an arduous journey to the top of the podium.
With the help of the Safety Car and some fortunate events, Norris was able to gain the advantage over Max Verstappen really quickly.
Norris believes McLaren will be “better suited to Imola” this weekend at Imola.
“We are just more suited to Imola, and there may be a slight upgrade as well,” he remarked. “I think we definitely made progress because Imola has historically been one of our most successful tracks as a team and for me as a driver.
I don’t think we’re getting ahead of ourselves because, from what I hear, other teams have upgrades as well. I believe I made it clear that we won’t be there every weekend, but I also gave the players excellent confidence and expressed our belief that we can advance.
In retrospect, Norris said he was “lucky” to win and that McLaren “needs more” in order to regularly challenge Red Bull and Ferrari.
“It’s how racing goes sometimes, but I was lucky last weekend with the safety car and the strategy worked out perfectly,” he continued. “I suppose that was the first positive indication we received, and it developed into something more. I wasn’t just first because I was the fastest at the moment; I was also the fastest on track.
“But even though the team is performing admirably, we need more if we want to consistently challenge Ferrari and Red Bull.” They took some positive actions, and ideally more will follow soon.
Still third fastest is McLaren.
With 124 points, well ahead of Mercedes in the F1 constructors’ title, McLaren is presently in third place.
He is convinced that McLaren is still too far behind, despite the fact that they have outpaced Ferrari in the last two races.
He clarified, “At the moment, I think we’re still too far behind.” “To come here for only one weekend was quite enough. It was a pleasant surprise that we turned out to be better than we had anticipated, Miami. China experienced comparable events.
“But the difference between being ahead and qualifying and being able to maintain that lead in the race and being behind and simply not having what it takes is not that great—we’re talking about one or two tenths of a lap at this point.
“Therefore, I don’t think we now have the package from the start of each weekend to the finish; I believe we still have work to do. I don’t believe we can compete with Red Bull or Ferrari.
“But now that we’re getting closer, I believe we needed to take a few more of the steps that we did in Miami before we could start having some more conversations about that kind of stuff.”
