“Wrong” to say McLaren don’t know how to fight at the front

Lando Norris defended his McLaren team over criticism of their performance but admitted too many things went wrong for them in the first part of the championship.

The team won twice in the first 14 rounds and emerged as the most consistent threat to Red Bull. However tactical errors and mistakes by Norris potentially cost them better results in recent races at Silverstone and Spa.

This season is the first since 2012 in which McLaren have won more than one race. But Norris said those who claim McLaren’s errors show they have forgotten how to compete at the front are “all wrong.”

“The team are doing an amazing job,” he told the official F1 channel. “From where we were last year to where we are now is one point, but of course where we are now and performing against the rest of the teams is also another point.”

However Norris admitted he and the team have room for improvement. “Obviously and clearly we’ve not done the best job and there’s been things we need to be better on. But we know that, we don’t need everyone else to say that on the outside.

“I’m still very happy with how the team have been performing. I think we’ve still been out-performing the majority of other teams. But we also know that we’re not the happiest with out-performing the majority. We want to out-perform everyone, and consistently, which is probably the biggest factor of it all.

“So I’m very happy. People can say what they want on the outside, but the mentality inside the team is very strong. Everyone’s very motivated and we just keep doing what we’re doing because we’re improving. We know we have work to do, but we keep our heads down and keep doing what we do.”

| Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

He said the summer break had given the team a useful opportunity to “reset” before the final 10 races of the season. “I’ve had time to review and look back on plenty of things so that’s been a good thing for myself and for the whole team,” said Norris.

“I think the main thing was to not forget how good a first half of the season it’s been. But there’s just been a few too many little things which have let myself down and let us down as a team.

“When we’re fighting for a championship and we’ve got to fight at a championship level, you can’t afford to make those little mistakes. So from my side, just trying to iron some of those things out is the main points.”

He expects the second part of the season to be even tougher than the first as Mercedes have become victory contenders and Ferrari appear to be solving the problems they encountered with their car.

“Now, we’re not just fighting against Max [Verstappen],” he said. “We’re fighting against, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes. There’s eight cars who are all fighting to try and win and to get the good points. So I don’t think we expect it to be any easier now.

“If anything, we expect it still to be more difficult through the season. But we’ve been performing very well. The team has been doing an amazing job. So if we improve on some certain things, then I’m confident we can be very strong.”

| Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Miss nothing from RaceFans

Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:

2024 Dutch Grand Prix

Browse all 2024 Dutch Grand Prix articles

Leave your comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *