Lando Norris is not pessimistic but “honest” about McLaren’s prospects post-F1 winter testing sessions

Lando Norris believes the reason for his pessimism surrounding the preseason testing performance is the unknown potential of McLaren’s rivals. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda ahead of the Bahrain GP, the Brit believes their inconsistencies at the Sakhir circuit in the past make it difficult to predict their performance.

After preseason testing, Lando Norris was open about being unhappy with their car’s performance. Despite a turnaround in performance in the second half of 2023, the Brit felt they might have a better idea of where they stand in the pecking order after qualifying and all the practice sessions are complete.

The 24-year-old believes that McLaren’s inconsistent performance at the circuit in the past makes it difficult to predict how they will perform in the first round of the season. He did not expect the first round to produce one of their strongest races, due to lack of confidence in their current package, which is assumed to be late in development.

Asked by Sportskeeda in the press conference to clarify the reasons for his pessimism going into the first round of the season, Lando Norris said:

“It's just the honest answer of, I think, where we stand. I think until we get to Friday, we get to qualifying, it's tricky to know where we're going to stand against some other teams. I think it's pretty close with several. I think there's a lot of expectation for us as a team just because of how well we progressed last year. Certain races, we were the closest to Red Bull and definitely not far away.”

“Certain other races we were still a long way off, you know, easily behind Mercedes, easily behind Ferrari, easily behind Red Bull and at times fighting with the teams behind that. So we were still just very inconsistent. Bahrain has never been a good circuit for us. We've never had one of our strongest races ever in Bahrain. So I think it's way too quick to judge and just say, okay, we're not going to be great here in Bahrain. That's the end of the season for us.”

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Lando Norris believes it will take a few races before McLaren can define their position in the pecking order

Lando Norris believes that the pecking order is difficult to predict prior to the first round in Bahrain. The McLaren driver felt that the reason for his pessimism going into the Bahrain GP was related to the slow progress made by their car. Nevertheless, he felt confident that his team could turn around their performance or make further gains as the season progressed.

Explaining the reasons behind his pessimism going into the first race of 2024, Lando Norris said:

“I think for everyone, because everyone's so up and down, you have to give us two or three, four or five races to get the first, I think, honest review of where everyone stands against one another and not just judge it off of the performance that we're going to see here in Bahrain. A combination of things, stuff that we still need to tackle if we want to make sure we've taken a step forward, which I think we have. We've made the car quicker and that's very clear from all the data we've got. But certain things haven't allowed us to progress as much as what I would have liked and I think as we all would have liked as a team.”

And also some of those issues are just highlighted a lot here in Bahrain, just because of the nature of the circuit. So I'm still confident when we go to certain circuits we were very fast at last year, like going back to Suzuka and things like that. I'm confident we can still be one of the best cars. But Bahrain has just not suited our car ever, necessarily. And exactly for that reason, I think that's why we're going to struggle a bit more here. But I'm confident we can turn it around later down the line.”

Positive about circuits like Suzuka and others that could suit McLaren, Lando Norris felt that Bahrain might need to be written off. He felt they had struggled in the past at this circuit which didn't make them confident about making progress at Sakhir. Despite the Brit’s pessimism, McLaren are expected to be in the mix with Mercedes and Ferrari in the pecking order.