Lando Norris is convinced Mercedes is right on the pace with McLaren at Silverstone despite topping the first two practice sessions at Formula 1’s British Grand Prix.
Norris has entered this round harbouring ambitions to better his second-place result on home soil last term and begun his outing on the right note as he headed FP1.
The Briton then repeated that effort in the second practice hour as he posted a 1:25.549s to emerge over three-tenths quicker than McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri.
But although he was enthused with the progress McLaren made across the sessions, Norris is cautious about Mercedes’ pace once the marque ramps up its engines.
Lewis Hamilton was sixth overall in FP2, 0.653s back from Norris’ benchmark time, while Austria race winner George Russell was 10th fastest, one-tenth further down.
“A good start to the weekend,” Norris reviewed. “Yeah, wasn’t like the cleanest, always cleanest, but I didn’t feel that comfortable this morning.
“But through the sessions we made some tweaks and I got in a much nicer window, which is important around here.
“Because it’s quite on the nose and quite sketchy and pretty high speed, so yeah, tricky, but I’m happy, I think we made some good progress.
“I think we’re pretty tight and even with the Mercedes they seem probably just as quick as us.
“They just didn’t turn up the engine and do as much in the final run so I think we’re in a good place but we definitely have a little bit more to fight.”
With rain descending during the closing stages in FP2 and more forecast across the weekend, Norris hopes that wet weather won’t arrive to hamper McLaren’s hopes.
“I always enjoy both conditions. I would prefer if it was one or the other,” Norris added.
“And honestly, on a home race, you would probably prefer if it was just dry, because we seem like we’re in a good place.
“I wouldn’t want to go too far away from that. But it’s Silverstone and it’s England. So yeah, I’m kind of ready for everything, but my preference would probably be to stay dry.”
Meanwhile, Piastri suspects rival teams were operating on alternative run plans to create an unrepresentative gap between McLaren and the other leading contenders.
“I think it’s interesting to see what other people are doing,” Piastri said. “If we can maintain that gap for the rest of the week, that would be good. I’m not sure we will.
“I think we had a good session, good day. The car felt pretty good. Just a few things to tidy up on my side, I would say. All in all, a decent Friday.”
Like Norris, Piastri is braced to see precipitation wreck havoc on proceedings and has pinpointed nailing the crossover periods as vital to McLaren remaining on top.
“I think it will have a big influence,” he said on the rain. “Again, the pace today in dry conditions might not necessarily be that important for the rest of the weekend.
“I think it’s going to be a tough one for all the teams trying to stay on top of the weather.
“I mean, yeah, trying to stay on top of British weather is hard in normal times, let alone on a race weekend. So, yeah, I think it’ll be an exciting weekend from that point of view.”
