Lando Norris has shared his thoughts on last year’s F1 Qatar Grand Prix, the lessons learned from a challenging Las Vegas GP race, and what to expect from this weekend in Losail. Reflecting on McLaren’s position on the grid, Norris spoke candidly about the team’s recent struggles and their chances against rivals like Ferrari and Mercedes.
Heading into this year’s Qatar Grand Prix, Lando Norris remains optimistic but acknowledges the competition from Ferrari and Mercedes F1.
Reflecting on last year’s Grand Prix, he said, “Mercedes were very quick here last year, so they’re definitely probably the favourites coming into this weekend.
“But it was close. I mean, Red Bull were good last year as well, Max, and we were good as well, so I’m expecting a good battle. I’m hoping it probably favours us a little bit more than Ferrari, but Ferrari fixed a lot of their woes that they were struggling with last year.”
Norris also pointed out that Ferrari and Mercedes seem to have better momentum recently, “Honestly, no idea, but when you look at things, Ferrari and Mercedes seem like the guys in a better flow at the minute.”
Lessons from Las Vegas
Norris opened up about the difficulties McLaren faced in the Las Vegas GP, particularly regarding tyre performance.
The Brit explained how he made drastic adjustments to his driving to manage his car’s weaknesses, as well as improving the pace. McLaren faced huge graining in the first two stints.
“As much as I could change, basically. But to a point that is almost undrivable, and probably risking too much crashing half the time. That’s what I had to do to try and survive and have a pace that was almost as good as them. But again, like I said, we have too many weaknesses in our car.”
Norris outlined front graining as a key issue McLaren struggled with. When he drove around it in the final stint, he set some very competitive lap times.
He explained, “It’s just frustrating when you’re on track and there’s nothing you can change to go a lot quicker and to get around some of those issues, like the front graining that we were having a problem with.
“I think as soon as we didn’t have the front graining, the pace was much closer to the others, like the final stint.”
Despite the challenges, Norris noted that valuable lessons were learned from the experience, albeit ones that might not be applicable at every circuit.
“It’s something that we’ll keep in mind. We’ll try, and we’ll test out, and we’ll try and save it for when we need to use it. It might be quite a tough weekend for them here.”
All eyes on Losail
When asked if this weekend presents an opportunity for McLaren to extend their advantage in the Constructors’ Championship, Norris remained pragmatic. “As difficult as the past two weekends have been, I don’t think they’ve been bad. I think we’ve just seen two sets of situations where we’ve struggled, which is one in the rain,” he explained.
“And we had certain problems there that we weren’t anticipating. And again, last weekend, where we had problems which are not an overnight fix. Otherwise, and other than that, I think the pace was still not too bad.”
Acknowledging the strengths of Ferrari and how they turnaround their issues from 2023, Norris expects a close battle this weekend.
“They suffered a lot with the front graining, like what we’ve struggled with this year, last year. But they’ve also turned into being one of the strongest in that area.
“Maybe not the track that they’re best on, on paper, but I think they’ve proved that this year, some of those tracks that they’ve not expected to be good at, they’ve been good at. So I wouldn’t put it past them to say that they can still have a great weekend.”
