McLaren’s Lando Norris had a strong 2023 season as he finished sixth in the championship. Despite delivering some impressive performances over the course of last year’s campaign, he was not always happy with himself. On various occasions, he explained how he was not doing justice to McLaren due to his poor qualifying performances. However, come 2024, the Briton seems to have worked on the same.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella shed light on the same ahead of the 2024 season opener in Bahrain. When asked what changes Norris made over the winter break to address his issues during qualifying, the 53-year-old replied (as quoted by Junaid),
“I think with Lando in particular, we realized that to deliver laps we have to have a certain approach, which I don’t want to disclose, but I think it even has to do with a certain style. And when we back off from this style, we kind of lose a little bit of rhythm, I would say. So this was an interesting finding”.
The Italian then explained how it was a team effort to help Norris address his issues during qualifying. As per Stella, without the data provided by the engineers, it would not have been possible for the British driver to figure out in which areas he lacked.
Since Norris seems to have worked on qualifying over the winter break, there are high hopes from him and McLaren overall. However, it is pertinent to note that he has not had the best of starts to the 2024 season so far. The 24-year-old only managed to qualify seventh for Saturday’s main race and will have it all to do if he is to secure a podium.
Lando Norris “disappointed” after Bahrain GP qualifying performance
Although Andrea Stella explained that Lando Norris worked extremely hard over the winter break to improve his qualifying performance, the Briton yet seems to be struggling. After qualifying seventh in Bahrain, Norris explained how he was “disappointed” to miss out on a potential front-row start.
The 24-year-old revealed in his post-qualifying interview that he lost one and a half tenths, the gap between second and seventh, due to a mistake he made in the first sector. Since he did not manage to meet his own expectations during qualifying, Norris hopes to make up for it during the main race on Saturday.
A lot can change in a year…#BahrainGP pic.twitter.com/2V6xThGJR0
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) March 1, 2024
While Norris made a mistake, his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri struggled throughout the qualifying session. After managing to qualify on the fourth row alongside Norris, the Australian explained how he failed to come to terms with the handling of the car. However, when it comes to McLaren’s pace, he too gave an optimistic review.
The 22-year-old explained that the Woking-based outfit seem to have made a huge step forward to close the gap to reigning champions Red Bull, who he does not believe look as quick as everyone feared initially. Now, it will be interesting to see where the McLaren duo finishes during the main race on Saturday.
