Lando Norris admits he didn’t expect such a MASSIVE improvement from McLaren after the upgrades

Lando Norris and Mclaren saw a massive improvement in their performance after an early season slump.

Lando Norris admits he didn’t expect such a MASSIVE improvement from McLaren after the upgrades

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris (Credits: trendradars.com)

McLaren finished the first half of the 2023 season as the most improved non-Red Bull team on the grid despite a flop start earlier. Lando Norris’s team stepped up the game after a nightmare day at Austria and saw a steady increase in qualifying and race pace. He even produced some neck-and-neck lap-long battles with Max Verstappen in the dominant RB19.

The recent upgrades made to their challenger are entirely to credit for the team’s performance. But their star driver Norris wasn’t sold on the idea earlier that they would have had such a massive improvement. The Englishman also pointed out that he had some supposed drops in Aston Martin, and Ferrari’s performance also helped them.

YouTube video

“I don’t know if they’ve taken a step back or Red Bull has taken a step forward or what, but we were expecting the upgrade to help us race against them, and so far, at a lot of these races, we’ve been ahead of them,” Norris told Racingnews 365.

FS Video

The team is currently standing in the fifth position in the constructor championship with a total gain of 103 points from the pre-summer break races. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are in eighth and 11 standings, respectively, In the championship standings, the British Driver gained 69 points while his Australian teammate gained 34 points.

Discover more: Alpine claims they ‘never lost confidence’ in sacked team principal Otmar Szafnauer

Zak Brown shares McLaren’s big goal for the end of the season

Zak Brown
Zak Brown (Credits: Racefans.net)

McLaren CEO Zak Brown, who has worked hard to keep the ball rolling to help the team achieve its goals, said that their objective for eth end of the season is to finish as the second-best team. They have to fend off Mercedes and Ferrari to reach the goal, as they also have made solid progress.

“Red Bull is an incredible team. To be the second fastest team at the end of the season, best of the rest would be very satisfying. There’s still a long way to go, but we’re definitely back in the game,” Brwon said.

In the 2022 formula one season, Mclaren ended up in the fifth standings with 159 points and is currently in the 5th position with 103 points. Where the half of the season is over, Mclaren is close to crossing last year’s points with their updated MCL60 and is seemingly on the right path to becoming one of the elite teams once again.

In case you missed it: