“It’s a better package”— Lando Norris confident McLaren will do better with Mercedes engine

“It’s a better package”— Lando Norris believes that Mercedes engine will bring them to a better performativity level than Renault.

Last season, McLaren remained the only outfit to purchase an engine from Renault, with Red Bull discharging their services at the end of 2018.

From 2021 onwards, McLaren has decided to go with Mercedes engines, and Lando Norris feels that it will surely elevate his team’s level, with Mercedes power unit being the best on the paddock.

“I think all around, it’s a better package,” Norris told Autosport. “It’s more power. Touchwood, it’s more reliability. It’s a slightly better-fitting package, so as just a whole, there’s a lot of positives about it.

“I’m not into everything, so I’m sure there are maybe some negatives there, and we have a good relationship with Renault, so things are very smooth now and we know them, and there’s going to be a lot of new things.”

Need to understand the transition

Norris further stated that there would be new things to understand with this new Mercedes allegiance, and trusts his engineers’ team to understand the procedure efficiently.

“I’m sure there’s going to be some things we have to understand, and we’re not going to be quite as natural with just the mechanics and the engineers and how they understand everything.

“Of course they’ll do a great job in that transition in trying to understand it. There’s going to be some things which are a bit trickier, but as a package, it should be much better, and that gives us good confidence it will take us that little bit further towards the top.”

Getting used to the car would be easier.

With the aerodynamics regulations, the chassis from 2020 will carry over to 2021, Norris spoke about the difficulty he faced in getting used to MCL35 car, thus, this year at least Norris will be in a car he already knows.

“With the tricky car that we had and the struggles and the positives and negatives, there are still many things we need to work on through [2021],” Norris said.

“I guess the good thing with having bad things with the car or negatives is that you can try and work on them and try and turn them into positives, and it will make the car quicker. That’s a good thing.

“It’s not like we have an amazing car which is slow, and we don’t know how to work on it. I think we know the direction we need to work in. It isn’t easy to unlock it and find those things.

“That’s probably why you see in the last two or three years, teams have been very similar – I guess apart from Ferrari. Although you’re spending, however much money, it’s just not easy for engineers to figure out these exact things which can be millimetres of difference with all these different parts.

“We’re working very closely with the factory and the aero department and things like that, and everyone in the factory to continue working hard and developing the car into next year.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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