Lando Norris still believes McLaren can win races in the seasons to come and has admitted to curbing his expectations for the immediate future.
After impressing in 2020 and 2021, McLaren appear to have taken a step backward with the advent of the new regulations in F1. Despite their obvious struggles, Norris has been a glimmer of hope for the Woking-based outfit.
Thus far in 2022, the Briton has only failed to score points on three occasions, including his unfortunate retirement at the 2022 F1 Miami GP after being caught by Pierre Gasly.
Lando Norris also has McLaren's only podium and top-three start this season, both coming at the 2022 F1 Imola GP.
As things stand, Norris has a contract that will keep him at Woking until the end of 2025. While the deal comes with a sizeable salary bump to make him a top earner in the sport, some think this move has squandered the Briton's potential with a team that won't be able to deliver the goods for a title challenge.
Meanwhile, Norris is still waiting to claim his first win in F1. The 22-year-old has been close in the past only to be denied under cruel circumstances, most notably in Sochi last year. When asked if he thinks his window to win alongside McLaren has closed during an interview with RaceFans, he said:
“No, no, no, no. I still believe. I didn’t sign up to be with McLaren for this year like ‘this year I’m going to be winning races’ – that was far from my belief. I still knew it would take a good few years – 2024-25 will be the first time when there should be less and less excuses in a way to go ‘why aren’t we in a position we should be in?’.”
Lando Norris hoping to reap the rewards from McLaren's impending infrastructure upgrades
Lando Norris expects to be able to challenge at the top of the F1 grid in a couple of years after McLaren have successfully upgraded their infrastructure.
Earlier in the summer break, McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl had confirmed the team had big plans for their facilities. In an interview with RacingNews365, the German engineer said:
“We plan to have the wind tunnel ready [by the] middle of next year, which means part of the ’24 car development will benefit from the new wind tunnel already. The first full car that [will be] developed in the tunnel is the ’25 car. On the driving simulator side, we are planning to complete a new one [at the] end of this year/beginning of next year, where we then hopefully see some benefits already next year, or [at the] latest in ’24.”
Seidl also touched on their CFD (computational fluid dynamics) development, adding:
“On CFD, we made big upgrades as well. We are heavily looking into updating all our production facilities as well, which needs to happen in parallel to [us] becoming better as a team.”
McLaren have taken a long-term approach to this and have tapered their expectations for the current season to focus on 2024 and beyond.
Lando Norris' current contract keeps him at Woking until the end of 2025 and could end up making McLaren his own team the way Max Verstappen has done at Red Bull by then.