“Not possible to reach Q3” for Lando Norris

The fog around McLaren will have to dissipate in Jeddah. After a terrible first weekend, Oscar piastri retiring on the 13th lap when Lando Norris made six pit stops to keep his car alive, there are doubts on the Woking side. Will it be possible for the Papayas to reach at least the last part of the qualifications in Saudi Arabia? “ Not yet for Q3, Norris directly admits, who placed his MCL60 in 11th place on the starting grid two weeks ago. It wasn't possible to be in Q3 in Bahrain so we know that, in terms of performance, we have a lot of work to do. »

And work, McLaren also has on its reliability. After being the team with the fewest laps on the clock in winter testing, doubts were confirmed as to the capacity of the car orange to finish his shopping. “ The problem Oscar encountered is a problem we've had for the first time in years so I'm confident it will be resolved, delays the pilot. For my part, Mercedes are sure they fixed the problem and again, this is something that hasn't happened in years. So these are rare problems. It's settled, on the side of HPP (High Performance Powertrains) as on the side of McLaren. Everyone makes it much worse than it is. And calling it a crisis is way too much of an exaggeration. “, he asserts.

“Not a good enough job” at Mclaren

Norris states straight away, he is not more optimistic as we approach this second round of the 23 races of the season. But in the very tight battle for the middle of the grid, the Briton thinks he has a card to play: “ I believe we are in the middle. But we should have at least fought with Alex (Albon, Williams), who was right in front of me before we had problems. But it's a different environment, a different tarmac, we hope we can do well.. “And to add:” I think it will be a close battle with Valtteri, Alfa and all these teams. I don't think we're that far away. »

Not that far, but not where Woking garage wants to be. After fighting for fourth place in the Manufacturers last season, Norris assumes that McLaren must rectify the situation quickly: “ I think what Aston has done is an example of that, what Ferrari done between 2021 and 2022 is also an example of what we need to do. And it's doable. We're just not doing a good enough job with what we have, we know a lot of things are in the pipeline but, at the same time, we need to do better than what we're doing right now. " The tone is set.

Perhaps the Jeddah track will be more lenient for Norris and his rookie teammate, in order to place themselves as fifth force in the field from the start of the Grand Prix, this Sunday March 19.

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