Lando Norris finished 20th, three places behind Daniel Ricciardo during FP1 in Austria, as McLaren’s woes continue.
McLaren are P4 in the standings right now, but the gap between them and the top three in huge to say the least. They were involved in a tense battle with Ferrari last year for P3, and as of today the papaya outfit are 131 points behind third placed Mercedes.
Norris had a good running in Silverstone last weekend when he finished P6 in front of his home fans. This weekend however has gone off to a horrid start for him, Ricciardo and the entire McLaren team.
The 2022 Austrian GP is a sprint weekend, which means Norris and Ricciardo had just one of running before qualifying. It ended up being a disaster as car troubles saw them in the back of the pack for the majority of the session.
Norris finished the session P20, and Ricciardo finished P17.
Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo hoping McLaren fix car ahead of qualifying
Norris and Ricciardo’s poor lap times were due to the car’s troubles. FP1 is an extremely crucial session, especially before a sprint weekend. The team now only have a few hours to figure out what went wrong, and rectify it before Qualifying starts.
McLaren, who are one of the most well supported teams in F1 today saw their fans get worried on social media. Fans of the surrey based outfit took to Twitter to voice their concerns regarding what could prove to be a very long weekend for their drivers.
Ricciardo in particular has had a difficult 2022 season, and has not really had any major talking points up until now. The honey badger, and teammate Norris will hope that McLaren find the answers to their problems before the Qualifying session gets under way.
