McLaren’s start to the 2023 Season is definitely concerning. Lando Norris and debutant Oscar Piastri could only complete 312 laps at the Bahrain International Circuit, the team’s fewest total.
Lando and Oscar both suffered mechanical issues and were unable to get a better understanding of the MCL60. And this does not look good for the Papaya team, who wish to push for 4th on the standings.
Based on the Pre-season lap times, Aston Martin looks much faster than McLaren. Even Alpine, Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri seemed to have progressed compared to them.
While the test results are concerning, Norris believes the team need not be discouraged by the bumpy start. As a matter of fact, the Briton claims the team have managed to steer clear of trickier situations.
Lando Norris feels McLaren did a good job despite botched testing
According to Lando Norris, McLaren managed to get ample data from their runs during the Pre-season Test. And he feels their performance was “a lot better than this time last year.”
McLaren had another troublesome start at the 2022 Pre-season testing. Daniel Ricciardo was forced to miss the entire session after testing positive for Covid-19. At the same time, Lando ran into brake issues and was the only source for their data.
Yet McLaren managed to finish P5 on the standings, giving Alpine a tough fight until the end for 4th position. Norris believes the team will be working on the issues, but it’s been okay so far.
Norris added, “Of course, we’ve been a bit more focused on making sure we get here on top of everything. There were a few little hiccups here and there, but overall the team did a better job.”
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MCL60 not much different than 2022 car, says Norris
While Lando Norris feels convinced that the team can turn the season around, McLaren was left scrambling. McLaren boss Zak Brown admitted that the team missed certain development goals ahead of the season opener.
The team are racing against time to fix the issues. But Lando feels, “There are still a lot of things that we’ve struggled with over the past few days. I think we’ve explored, we’ve tried a lot of different things with the settings.”
The Briton claims McLaren is in a better position. And that the MCL60 is not far from the MCL36, the car he raced in 2022. He adds, “The car handles quite similar to last year’s car, which I guess is a good thing in many ways. but it’s also obvious that we have to focus on performance..”
The true test of the car will be seen when Piastri and Norris set lap times during the Free Practice session of the 2022 Bahrain GP on 3rd March.
Also Read: Lando Norris Highlights Differences Between Oscar Piastri and Daniel Ricciardo
