Norris sees McLaren not threatening top teams: 'Need to perform better'

Lando Norris is entering his fifth season as McLaren's driver in Formula 1. The young Brit hoped to be closer to the top teams in 2023, but instead, the team seem to have lost ground with the MCL60. Norris hopes McLaren can finish fourth among constructors this year, although they will have to capitalise mainly on a strong second half of the season.

GPblog asked Norris in Bahrain what a realistic goal is for 2023. "As a team, it's simply to see the plan that we have in place be executed. We have the plan. We have a lot of what we need. The [new] wind tunnel is coming, the [new] simulator is coming. Two things that will help us take another step forward. But we need to do more with what we have now already," he acknowledged.

McLaren must and can do better

The winter tests did not go as they should have. The Woking-based racing team failed to achieve competitive times and also completed the fewest laps of any team. Norris agrees that things need to improve and argues that it is important to make a lot of progress this year, especially ahead of 2024. McLaren previously indicated that 2023 could be considered an intermediate year.

"We want to at least see some progress and end the season in a better way than we started. We want to end as a top-four team which will I think give us a big boost of confidence to go into 2024 when we have part of the car set-up with the [new] wind tunnel. We can be more confident going into the end of the season," Norris added.

Newcomer Piastri

With Oscar Piastri as a rookie, McLaren will be looking to hit the ground running. Making his debut, the Australian will no doubt have to get used to driving a Formula 1 car in the first few weeks. As Formula 2 champion in 2021, Piastri had to watch from the sidelines for a year.