Lando Norris on Canadian GP weekend: “A little bit on the back foot”
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Lando Norris
The Canadian Grand Prix is back after two seasons without it. Last time in Montreal, Lando Norris had retired during the race after his right-rear suspension broke, which happened due to overheating tires burning through the suspension. That was, of course, the season he had made his Formula 1 debut.
Once again, Lando Norris is slightly on the back foot. His McLaren MCL36 had run into some trouble, which meant that he could only complete 17 laps during the session – quite a bit less than everyone. He was able to compete in FP2 without being hampered with any major problems – where he finished 8 tenths off the lead car, Max Verstappen. His teammate, Daniel Ricciardo slotted in just below him in 9th.
Perhaps surprisingly, Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Pierre Gasly were all ahead of him. McLaren are fourth in the championship – 22 points ahead of Alpine, but it is very possible that other teams may have more pace than them in Montreal. As reported by GPFans, Norris was not particularly optimistic for the weekend.
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Lando Norris feels he will have to play catch-up this weekend
Talking about his Friday, Lando Norris felt that it was not a particularly good one. This can change in the rest of the weekend, but for now, Norris felt that he was on the back foot. He said:
“It is tough. It is not an easy track with the bumps, with the poor grip as well, being a street circuit that I guess never gets used until a Formula 1 race.”
He felt that McLaren had some improvements, but they still looked miles off the pace to the teams that they presumably will be competing with this weekend.
“Tough, but I think we found some smaller things with the car, we made some good improvements but we also… pace-wise we are not looking amazing, Aston [Martin] were a long way ahead of us.”
Certainly, Aston Martin have looked fairly strong, with Sebastian Vettel being only around 0.090s behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. After what has been a rocky season for the German, the fact that the pace looks strong this weekend, and also considering that he has scored points in the last two races, it certainly looks much better for Vettel now. On this progress, Norris said:
“The last few weeks they have definitely taken a step and look much more competitive now. So in the middle, lost a bit of running in FP1, so a little bit on the back foot with the long-run stuff and having to play catch up but not in a bad place.”
Overall, Norris thought that the weekend was not looking particularly strong, but it was satisfactory. He would be hoping for improvement today, and will certainly hope the weekend ends better than his last one in Montreal did.
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Aniket Tripathi
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