Lando Norris expects McLaren to prey on Red Bull in 2024 as he says it is ‘realistic’ to be ‘optimistic in terms of progressing’
After the rise in the performance from McLaren, Lando Norris is expecting a fight with Red Bull in the season of 2024.
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Lando Norris and Max Verstappen (via IMAGO)
The season of 2023 gave some great lessons to the McLaren squad in terms of their car development. They did recruit the dream racer in Oscar Piastri but experienced a massive slump at the start of the season. Then, the team scored well at the Abu Dhabi GP and made a great comeback after providing some mid-season updates to the MCL60. Taking notes from their improvement in 2023, Lando Norris displayed optimism for the team for their 2024 campaign.
In lieu of the upward incline in the performance of the papaya team, Lando Norris complimented Andrea Stella over his leadership skills. Thanks to their mid-2023 improvements, Norris further displayed his optimism over challenging the dominant Red Bulls at the front of the grid next season. Further, he added that such a spike in their results will be difficult in the middle of the season but not impossible.
Optimistic in winning I don’t think is very realistic, but optimistic in terms of progressing and taking a step towards Red Bull, we can definitely do that, Because we’ve done it in the middle of the season when it’s harder than ever to do.
Lando Norris said, as reported by thenationalnews.com.
Additionally, the Briton talked about the limited time in the wind-tunnel that McLaren will be getting for the development of their 2024 car. He further talked about how the winter break is going to be a reset for all the teams. Finally, he claimed that McLaren are on the right track for development.
You’re a lot more limited on wind-tunnel time and looking at the now and trying to think, ‘OK, what else we can do’. The winter is just reset; you take everything, you take it apart, you look at every single object, and you put it back together in an even better way. And now we know what direction to lean in, we can really go for that. We’re on the right track.
Lando Norris highlighted the ‘close moments’ with Red Bull in the 2023 season
The 24-year-old driver reflected back on the close moments with Red Bull in the season. Norris claimed that the race in Brazil was very close to Red Bull in terms of pace with just around eight seconds of difference. Additionally, He highlighted the close calls at the Japanese GP and the British GP.
Further the Papaya-squad driver added that a 15-second time gap between the race leader isn’t as big as Mount Everest. He exclaimed that the gap is a mere tenth of a lap difference even if the difference is as big as 15 seconds. Finally, Norris complimented the dominant performance from Red Bull in the season and appreciated their consistency in performance.
The McLaren squad has shown some great improvements and also revealed the strong side of the team. McLaren just needs to get everything together and string better results in the following season to seriously challenge the front runners on the grid like Red Bull.
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Aditya Pandya
(1440 Articles Published)