McLaren ace Lando Norris shares honest opinion on MCL38: “Just a few setbacks

In the last season, McLaren transformed the Formula One grid into a fiercely contested area, showcasing their competitiveness as the closest rival to Red Bull. The team has also recently expressed significant enthusiasm while talking about their new car.

However, while the driving pace of the upcoming season’s new MCL38 is yet to be revealed, Lando Norris shared a brief comment immediately after the pre-season testing session.

Lando Norris talks on McLaren 2024 challenger MCL38

The pre-season testing session was held in Bahrain to help all the cars gain valuable insight into their expected performances for the 2024 campaign and address several significant areas of improvement for the team. On the first day of the pre-testing session, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took the lead, but on the second and final day, Ferrari secured the top spot, surpassing the “Unbeatable Bulls.”

Later on, when questioned by Ted Kravitz from Sky F1 in his “Ted’s Notebook” segment about whether McLaren could also achieve the lap times that Ferrari had been achieving, Lando Norris replied with a straight “no.”

After that, Ted also asked, “How about a podium finish at least to get McLaren’s F1 2024 campaign underway in style?” to which the response from Norris, remained the same, with a “no.” Norris also highlighted the fact that while he clearly observes significant areas of improvement for the team and the MCL38, there are still some areas of weakness that the team has yet to address.

He said, “We have our good places and bad places. don’t really think at the moment we’ve improved on where we’re going to be. I think that’s still clear. Some areas we still really need to work on, and I’m not very convinced we’ve made many steps in the right direction.”

Lando Norris performance last F1 season

Last season was completely unpredictable for McLaren, with the pace of the car having a drastic change shortly after the new updates were introduced. The team’s main driver, Lando Norris, finished in sixth place in the 2023 drivers’ standings and set a new standard for himself by achieving seven podiums.

Due to his incredible pace on the tracks, he has also been ranked as the fourth-best Formula One driver in the 2023 season. After the conclusion of the entire campaign, Norris also claimed that it was undoubtedly the best year of his career, as he was able to truly showcase his drawing skills as soon as the updates were introduced.

He added, “I think it’s been my best year. I think it’s been our best year as a team. I guess a lot of it’s just for the obvious reasons—the success that we’ve been able to have since the start that we’ve had.”

Do you think McLaren would be able to showcase their driving skills yet again this season as well? Tell us about your opinions in the comment section below.