Lando Norris makes bold claim over being far slower than Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari

Lando Norris downplayed McLaren's prospects for 2025 by making a stark comparison with Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari.

Lando Norris makes bold claim over being far slower than Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari

Lando Norris (via GPBlog) and Lewis Hamilton (via Getty images)

Lando Norris and McLaren arguably had the fastest car in 2024. Many expect the Woking-based team to double down on this pace in the upcoming season. However, Norris has now made an interesting claim in comparison to Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari.

McLaren won its first constructors’ title since 1998 last year. Albeit, the British team narrowly defeated Ferrari in the fight. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton has been rather confident over the Scuderia’s performance after preseason testing.

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The 25-year-old reckoned that the MCL39 felt good to drive during testing. Lando Norris expressed his delight to be back on-track after a long winter. Although, he noted that the pace of the car was still unclear. Moreover, the McLaren star insisted that the team was at least one second slower than Ferrari’s SF-25.

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[The car feels] good. Just nice to be back in the car. First of all, just driving again is always, is what we love to do. Right? So it’s nice. [The] pace of the car, it’s just difficult to tell. At the minute, we’re one second off Ferrari.

Lando Norris said, as quoted by GPBlog

Lando Norris and McLaren not focused on timesheets

Despite making such big claims over Ferrari’s pace, Lando Norris highlighted that McLaren was not paying attention to the timesheets. Rather, the British team did its own thing during the course of testing. The Woking-based squad learnt as much as possible about its new car in preparations for the first race in Australia.

Lando Norris (via Planetf1)
Lando Norris (via Planetf1)

If you look at just the time sheets, whatever one loves to do. So, we’re just doing our own thing, learn about the cars, plenty of things we need to still learn about and test.

Lando Norris noted

Lando Norris is skeptical about McLaren’s pace in comparison to rival teams, particularly Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari. The runner-ups from last year will be looking to come back stronger this season courtesy of Hamilton’s arrival. As such, the upcoming season could witness a major rivalry between McLaren and the Prancing Horse.