"There are still a lot of positives" - Lando Norris happy with McLaren's 'reasonable start' to 2022 F1 season

Lando Norris has had a strong start to the 2022 F1 season as a driver. Although McLaren has been unable to match the level of performance that a driver like Norris produces, the young Briton has been relatively happy with how the first half of the season went.

Speaking about the first half of the season, Norris was especially proud of the podium he scored at Imola and said:

“For myself and my driving and so on, I’m happy. Some good highlights, I don’t know how I got a podium in Imola, it just blows my mind. With the car that we have that’s quite some achievement so still makes me smile now, but then there are still a lot of positives.”

Lando Norris, however, did admit that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done at the moment as the teams at the front are just too far ahead. He said:

“It’s just now we have a lot of work to do. The gap to the guys ahead is still massive and I guess yes, it’s close on Saturday, but everyone is closer on Saturday, even last place is a lot closer. It’s just the spread on Sunday is bigger than what it has been in past, and we’ve got to work on that.”

Norris scored multiple podiums last season, in contrast to the 2022 F1 season, where McLaren has measurably fallen back with only a single podium so far.

The Briton, however, looked at the positives as he admitted that although the start of the season was not that good, the team has been able to bounce back and is still fighting for fourth in the championship. He said:

“I think the main thing is that of course we just didn’t come into the season as strong as we needed to. How we’ve done since then, since the first race I think has been very good and strong. Considering we are still fighting for fourth in the constructors against a team which has been a lot more competitive since day one shows how good of a job we’ve done in many other areas.”

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You always want to fight for more!: Lando Norris

While Lando Norris admitted that there have been some strong points for McLaren all season, he feels the team is still not where it wants to be. Reiterating that the gap to the top three is a big one right now, he said:

“Our consistency, reliability in many ways, pit stops, strategy, a lot of things have been very strong. Just we didn’t start as well as what we wanted but I think we’ve made some good progress since then, so as long as we continue to do that after the break then I’ll be happy.”

“But it’s just been tough you know – you always want to fight for more and fight for higher positions and the gap we have to the top three teams is still a big one, so we just need to focus on closing that down.”

Lando Norris has been one of the standout drivers this season. He will be hoping that McLaren can start making progress to the front of the grid sooner rather than later.