Following the conclusion of the 2023 season, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff admitted that catching up with Red Bull will be a gargantuan task. The gap between them is simply too big for Mercedes to bridge over the course of three months. McLaren driver Lando Norris, however, does not think it will be as difficult as Wolff made it out to be.
Wolff made an interesting analogy following the season finale in Abu Dhabi. He compared catching up with Red Bull to climbing “Mount Everest” because of how dominant the Milton-Keynes-based outfit was. Norris, on the other hand, thinks it is not comparable to the tallest mountain peak in the world. Instead, he compared it to just climbing a hill.
22 races later ✅
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) November 27, 2023
“So that’s not Mount Everest,” he said at the DP World Golf Performance (as quoted by F1 Maximaal) . “It’s a hill, but it’s not Mount Everest. When you talk about fifteen seconds about a sixty-lap race, you’re talking about a tenth per lap – it’s minimal. It is nothing, but at the same time it is so much.”
Looking at the bigger picture, it is understandable why Norris is more bullish about his team’s chances of catching up with Max Verstappen and Co. in 2024.
Why Lando Norris has a right to feel bullish about McLaren’s 2024 chances
Mercedes finished 2023 in P2, but a lot of people feel that the Silver Arrows got lucky. Ferrari and McLaren picked up rapidly in the latter stages of the season, and the former narrowly missed out on edging the Brackley-based outfit.
that’s a wrappppp pic.twitter.com/n4BV4kM82J
— Lando Norris (@LandoNorris) November 26, 2023
Norris and McLaren’s development and progress last season was a treat for fans of the British team. They started the year in disastrous fashion, but their incredibly strong development saw them take P4 in the standings. One could argue that in the last few race weekends, they were stronger than Mercedes.
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We’ve been on this journey together, and we can’t wait to see where it’ll take us next. pic.twitter.com/W93qUyO8t6
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) November 26, 2023
Overall, everyone at McLaren is confident about their development of the 2024 car. This could be a reason why Norris considers catching up to Red Bull as climbing a hill whereas Wolff labels it as a huge task.
