The F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain concluded last week with teams gathering crucial data for the upcoming season. McLaren’s Lando Norris expressed his thoughts on the British team’s F1 2025 challenger in a press conference on Day 2 of testing. While he remarked that some things need improvements, the Brit is confident about how they are looking.
Similar is good for a starting point
In the press conference, Norris was asked to compare the feeling of the McLaren’s 2025 F1 challenger MCL39 to the 24 car. The reigning Constructors’ Champions will start the season with a rather interesting and high anti-dive suspension design. In terms of kinematics, what the new car promises for the season ahead remains as a gamble.
Norris stated that the novel car feels similar to the previous one and no big steps were taken since the last season. Nevertheless, he mentioned that feeling similar to a car that won the championship is a good starting point.
“It feels similar as what I said in the interviews earlier, feels similar, which is a good start. That’s where we wanted to start at least.
“Nothing’s been majorly addressed. It’s not like that much has changed from what we’ve tried to do, just try to make the car quicker all around and add more load. No simple way of looking at it.”
Struggles are there to be fixed
The Briton expressed that they had struggled with the rear being a bit slippery during testing. Though this wasn’t preferable on their behalf, Norris elaborated that the McLaren team wasn’t expecting the perfect result during 2025 F1 testing.
“Honestly, we still want to try and focus on some areas more than others. Like you’re saying, we’ve struggled a bit more with the rear than we would have liked over yesterday and today. It’s all loady days.
“We’re not looking at performance of absolute outright performance, and if we went into qualifying now I’m sure we would change some things.
“But a lot of today and yesterday has been just ticking the boxes. It’s not the fun bit and then the fun will become this afternoon and tomorrow morning.”
Despite having struggles with the performance of the car, Lando Norris believes they can overcome and refine these problems throughout the season. McLaren will have plenty to work on ahead of Melbourne, the Australian Grand Prix, after a productive testing where they figured out where to improve.
Target is to fight for wins from the beginning
Putting the problems with the rear aside, Norris argued that the McLaren’s 2025 F1 challenger feels good. Thus, he remarked that if they manage to improve the rear of MCL39, they will have a better journey throughout the season.
“Along those lines, I think if we want to improve anything at a minute is still the rear of the car. The more you can improve the rear, the more everything just gets better, but the rest of it feels correct.”
The Briton also said that being in the same ground as the previous season was what they wanted for the current car. He assures that the team expects to fight for the top, which is a happy starting point for McLaren before the important refinements commence.
In 2024, McLaren started off as the fourth quickest team. Not since 2012 has the team had a car capable of winning and challenging for podiums at the start of a campaign.
“It feels like it’s in the same ballpark and that’s what we want. So, I don’t think we’re expecting to be a big step ahead of anyone.
“We’re expecting to be tied alongside the guys to my ride. But if we’re just they’re fighting from the beginning that’s our target.
“Considering how the last few years have been, if we can just be there fighting from the off then we’ll be happy.”
