McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has praised Lando Norris’s upturn in performance and consistency in both qualifying and race trim in the 2024 F1 season compared to 2023, pointing out how the young Briton is now capitalising on the areas where he needed to improve last season, especially during those critical qualifying laps.
The Italian mentioned how there were some clear opportunities missed in 2023, like at Qatar GP, when Norris had a car fast enough for pole position but lost both of his best laps in Q3 due to track limits infringements, meaning that he started the main grand prix from 10th place instead of pole position.
Speaking to selected media after the Chinese GP last week, Stella was full of praise for Norris’ improvement year-on-year compared to last season, mentioning how he has found a way to work around some of his previous deficits based on “small adaptations” that have given big benefits on-track so far this season:
“I think what Lando [Norris] has done this year, he has been able to capitalise on a lot of points and opportunities that we identified last year,” said the 53-year-old. “For instance, one is qualifying performance. How do you put together clean laps in qualifying? Last year he was quick, but we have had several situations. Like in Qatar, when he could have been in pole position, he had both laps in Q3 deleted.
“There was a lot to take from there and from some other situations. So he has done a really good job of working on the opportunities together with his engineers and the support of the factory, and made some small adaptations to be able to exploit the potential of the car to a greater extent. So this is credit to him.”
The McLaren boss also explained how Norris has improved his understanding of tyres and race situation, making him a more complete package over the race distance:
“I think also in the race, he seems to become more and more consistent and more and more capable of understanding what is going on, what is going on with the tyres, which axle is going [to be the limiting factor], how long can these tyres go.
“It’s just what normally we call the racecraft that seems to be becoming larger and larger and more and more accurate.”
Norris currently sits in fifth place in the 2024 F1 drivers’ championship, behind only the two Red Bulls and the two Ferrari cars, with 58 points and two podiums so far this year.
