After a sluggish start to the season, McLaren have made a promising comeback in Australia. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri extracted commendable P4 and P6 in the qualifying on Saturday. The Briton, however, is not so much convinced with the car’s progress. Norris credited the uptick in results to the Albert Park circuit’s layout, which just happens to suit the MCL38 better.
Autosport quoted him as saying, “We’ve improved in a couple of small areas and maximized ourselves, but it’s just a slightly different circuit layout that potentially played into our favor. Nothing more than that.”
The season started with P7 and P8 qualifying positions for Norris and Piastri, respectively, in Bahrain. The senior McLaren driver managed to improve that result by one position in the race. They saw an improvement in qualifying in Jeddah as Norris started from P6 while Piastri secured a commendable P5 spot. The race saw a bittersweet result as Piastri was able to a spot higher while his teammate slipped down to P8.
| A three-place grid penalty for Perez for impeding Hulkenberg in Q1. Drops him from third to sixth and promotes Norris to P3, Leclerc to P4 and Piastri to P5
— McLaren F1 News (@FormulaShambles) March 23, 2024
Though the Australian circuit’s shorter straights have played to the Papaya team’s strengths. The car is slower in straight-line speeds but the shorter runs hide that weakness. Moreover, Sergio Perez’s penalty has bumped up both drivers’ starting positions by one spot.
The P3 start has given Lando Norris realistic hopes of a possible podium finish. Oscar Piastri, who starts in P5, has a fair chance too but will have to manage his race better to enhance the probability.
McLaren needs to deliver results to keep Lando Norris
McLaren finished the 2023 season as arguably the fastest in the second half behind Red Bull. Experts believed the Woking outfit would carry that momentum in its 2024 car’s development and start the new season strongly. However, the team once again missed targets on the development of the car and the mediocre results in the first two races are a result of that.
Meanwhile, Lando Norris has put up a defeated front in the media, often revealing his helplessness over the ability to improve results. Puzzled ahead of the race in Jeddah, the 24-year-old joked about having no other option but to jump-start before the lights out to fight the rivals. While that ironically came true, Norris successfully expressed his vulnerable position.
Interviewer: So what can you do tomorrow?
Lando Norris: “I have no idea…… jump the start” pic.twitter.com/UO4y6Y3v4k
— McLaren News | (@McLarenF1_News) March 8, 2024
Team principal Andrea Stella is confident of steady progress through the season, though. The Italian manager gave an update on the upcoming upgrade packages for the MCL38. He talked about making a few milliseconds worth of improvement with minor upgrades in Australia and Japan. Furthermore, he revealed the plan to bring a major upgrade within the first third of the season, as per MotorsportWeek.
Lando Norris is currently in his sixth season, as a starter, with the team. It is high time he scores a victory or experiences noticeable progress toward championship-winning capabilities. The inability to demonstrate that could see McLaren lose their star driver.
