Norris is confident McLaren can challenge Red Bull: 'on the right track'
Lando Norris was so close to securing his second F1 race victory at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola on Sunday. The young Brit's late charge wasn't enough to beat Max Verstappen to the line, as the McLaren driver finished just seven-tenths behind the three-time world champion in his Red Bull. Although Verstappen won his fifth Grand Prix of the season, Norris feels like McLaren is now in a position to consistently challenge them due to McLaren's successful upgrades package.
In the press conference after the race, Norris was asked about the effect of the Woking-based team's recent upgrades. "We had a second in China, so we've had second, first, second, and I think that's good signs," the Brit said. Norris also commented on how close the field currently is. "But for the same case, I made a one-tenth mistake yesterday and I'm three positions back. We probably then don't have a McLaren driver on the podium, so then all of a sudden you're like, oh, it's not as good as it looks. I think we're extracting everything we can out of the car, and when we do that, we're here. We're on the right track. The team has done such a good job for us to be standing here."
Norris left 'excited' by McLaren's progress
Many people didn't expect us to still be able to improve so much and to catch up with Red Bull. I don't think we're at their level just yet. As we saw today, they still have areas where they're better and maybe some areas where we are better now, which is a good sign. I think there's going to be tracks where we can be stronger. I'm still looking forward to a couple of those tracks, but there's going to be somewhere a little bit off still. We're working on those places and if we work and improve on them as much as we have the rest of the car, then I'm excited that we can definitely continue to fight them."
McLaren is comfortably third in the constructor's standings and will be looking to close the 58-point deficit to Ferrari in the coming races.