Lando Norris asserts that the potential of McLaren’s 2024 Formula 1 car should not be assessed on how it fares in this weekend’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
McLaren has tended to begin seasons on the back foot in recent years, including last term when the team struggled to escape Q1 eliminations in the nascent stages.
However, the expectations have been heightened for the Woking-based squad coming into this campaign after it ended 2023 as Red Bull’s most consistent contender.
But speaking following pre-season testing last week, Norris denied that McLaren could be in podium contention from the outset amid Red Bull and Ferrari’s progress.
When asked about that pessimism ahead of the first race, 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 of the 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’s recent status as the curtain raiser to the season coupled with McLaren’s sluggish starts has seen the team fail to score at the circuit on the previous two visits.
However, Norris believes that judgements on McLaren’s prospects for the campaign ahead should be reserved until the series has travelled to more circuit configurations.
“Bahrain has never been a good circuit for us. We’ve never had one of our strongest races ever in Bahrain,” Norris conceded.
“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.’
“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.”
McLaren boss Andrea Stella had cautioned ahead of testing that the team had been unable to address certain areas of development with its latest creation, the MCL38.
Norris has echoed those comments, suggesting that McLaren’s deficit in slow-speed performance will remain against its rivals despite the strides the team has made.
“So 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,” he continued. “We 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 would have liked as a team.
“And also some of those issues I 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 is just not suited our car ever necessarily.
“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.”
