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Lando Norris is elated with the progress made by McLaren in the first three races of the season. Speaking to the Motorsport Network, the British driver said that the Woking squad have had a better start to the season in 2024 than in 2023.
In 2023, McLaren had scored only 12 points in the first three races of the season compared to the 55 points they have scored in the first three races in 2024.
According to Lando Norris, there are still areas that need improvement. But the 24-year-old felt that the strong start projects a better performance trajectory for the rest of the year.
On Friday in Australia, the Papaya squad were the quickest in race pace. Caught out by Ferrari’s strategy in the race, Lando Norris was unable to leapfrog Charles Leclerc despite the pace advantage.
Summarising his views on the 2024 season so far, Lando Norris said:
“On the whole, I'm very happy. Can I be happier? Yes. Can we all? Yes, because we always want more, we always want to be able to compete a bit higher. But I think for us to start the season in such a solid position, knowing that we can still improve on so many areas, it's a smile on my face, because we're in a good position, and we know we can get a lot better still.
“If you think back to 12 months ago, it was still a very, very different situation to be in. We've out-developed our competitors since this time last year by a huge step. It gets harder and harder to do that the closer you get to the top, but still plenty of things for us to do.”
Lando Norris unsurprised by Red Bull prowess but impressed by Ferrari’s progress in 2024
With Red Bull’s early season switch to developing their 2024 car last season, Lando Norris expected their advantage over their rivals. Despite the Milton Keynes team getting a head start in development, he felt it was a great achievement for McLaren to be close them in performance.
However, Norris was most impressed by Ferrari who he believes have taken a significant leap in terms of performance.
Outlining his opinion on the performance curve of McLaren’s rivals, Lando Norris said:
“The gap to Red Bull is completely expected. If you look at when they stopped developing last year, they put a lot of time and effort into trying to develop a good car for this year. So for us to be still as close as we are to them, I think it's a good sign.
"You would probably say the most impressive has been Ferrari, in how they've been able to take a very big step, I would say, probably one of the biggest steps from last year to this year. But for us to still be not far behind I think it's a completely good sign for us.
“Of course, we always hope for that little bit more, and we hoped to just come out and be able to fight straight away at the front, but we took a step and we weren't able to maybe tackle a few of things that we really have struggled to tackle in the last few years. But now more than ever we're trying to tackle those areas.”
Despite finishing third in the Australian GP, Lando Norris is sixth in the driver’s championship and trails teammate Oscar Piastri by one point. However, McLaren have leapfrogged engine supplier Mercedes in the constructors championship and are third behind Ferrari. They are 29 points ahead of the Silver Arrows squad and 38 points behind the Maranello team.
With a turnaround in performance post-summer break last year, the Woking team has managed to unlock the potential of their car and develop it subsequently. Consequently, they have scored the maximum points in the first three races in a season since 2012.
