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Lando Norris has jumped to the defense of McLaren amidst claims that the team is going through a crisis. The McLaren driver did not have a great start to the season.
After suffering a reliability issue early in the race, Norris was forced to make six pit stops in the race. He ended the race last in the standings and outside of points. This was the second season in a row where McLaren had a poor start to the season.
When questioned by Simon Lazenby of Sky Sports if the team was going through a crisis, Lando Norris defended his team and said:
"No, it's far from that. Oscar's problem, it was an issue that we've had the first time we've seen in years and years and years, so confident that's fixed and from my issue, Mercedes are sure that they fixed that and it was, again, something which hasn't happened for years and years. So both quite rare issues."
He added:
"And both things that we're confident, both from HPP side and from McLaren side that are fixed. I don't know, everyone makes it sound a lot worse than it is. And calling it crisis is far from that at all and it's nothing close to it. So, no, we're confident we can get some good points, I would say, this weekend. I think it's a close fight for... with Valtteri, with Alfa and a lot of those teams."
"Towards the top four teams, it's a very big jump": Lando Norris
Lando Norris admitted that the jump towards the top 4 teams on the grid (Red Bull, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Mercedes) is a big one but assured that the team was working towards achieving that goal.
He told the media, including Sportskeeda:
"Towards the top four teams, it's a very big jump. But I'm confident we can be in that fight. I don't think we're that far away. It was made very clear and very early on that we're far from where we want to be. And like you said, for McLaren's expectations and who we are as a team, we're far from where we want to be. But we have a very clear plan."
He added:
"I think it's very clear from everyone back in MTC and here what we need to achieve and want to achieve. It's just going about setting it and achieving it, which is our next call."
Lando Norris will be hoping for a stronger weekend this time around as the car appears to be good enough to challenge for points.
