McLaren: Lando Norris says he has the ‘patience’ to wait for team to rebuild into championship winners
Lando Norris says he has the patience to wait for McLaren to rebuild themselves into a championship-winning team in Formula 1.
McLaren unveiled their new car on Monday saying they were hoping to re-establish themselves in the top four.
Norris says his “excitement” about McLaren’s potential helps him with “a little bit of patience I need to have”.
“We are a team who should be able to win championships and we will soon have everything in place to do so,” he said.
McLaren slipped back from fourth to fifth in the constructors’ championship last season and say that only when their new wind tunnel and other infrastructure projects come on stream later this year will they be in a position to think about taking the next stop of competing with leading teams Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.
Norris has established himself as one of the top five or six drivers in F1, but he has yet to win a race.
He said he has “definitely not lost faith” in McLaren’s ability to achieve their target of becoming winners by the end of his contract in 2025.
The 23-year-old Briton said: “I am probably not the most patient guy in the world, but it [patience] is something you need to learn to have in F1. I am just doing my job one day at a time and that’s the way I go about it.
“A successful year would be to still take some big steps forward, a year where we can get back to fighting at the front of the midfield confidently – that’s something that slipped away from us last year – and leading the fight for the top three teams.
“If we can end this season around that spot, where are fighting for fourth constructor and leading the way to the top three, we can be happy. That is a realistic goal. You can’t expect us to be level with the Red Bull and Ferrari and Mercedes this year, there is still a way to go for that.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said he was “happy but not entirely happy with the launch car, but optimistic we should take a good step soon. There are some areas of the car that will be improved by developments in the early part of the season.”
The new wind tunnel along with a new simulator and new manufacturing capabilities are due to come on stream in the middle of the year in time to be used for development on McLaren’s 2024 car.
Stella enters his first season as McLaren F1 boss as a replacement for Andreas Seidl who has moved to Alfa Romeo/Sauber to lead its transition to Audi.
Stella said: “Normally you need to be totally happy to achieve your targets. While we are happy with the development in most areas (of the car), there are some areas we realised some strong directions a little late so have not necessarily been able to capitalise in the short term.
“That’s why I talk about ‘after the start of the season’. It is more relative to ourselves and that’s why I talk about realism.”
The Italian, who joined McLaren from Ferrari in 2015, said the parts he was talking about should arrive “we hope a couple of months into the season, hopefully less – this may coincide with race four, we will see how early we can get the project to land.”
Stella said Norris, heading into his fifth season in F1, was expected to take on more of a leadership role with the team now he has a rookie team-mate in Australian Oscar Piastri alongside him.
McLaren have been working over the winter on ensuring Piastri is ready for his debut in Bahrain next month, despite there being only three days of pre-season to be shared between both drivers. He has been working with the engineers, spending time in the simulator and driving a 2021 car in on-track test sessions.
Piastri starts his time in F1 with high expectations after a stellar junior career and after McLaren won a legal battle with Alpine, for whom he was reserve driver last year, for his services last summer.
The 21-year-old, who has not raced since winning the Formula 2 title in 2021, admitted: “There will be a bit of rust after not racing for a year”.
“I have a lot to focus on,” he added. “Coming into the sport in my rookie year, there will be a lot to learn – just building the foundations for my career, getting up to speed after not racing for so long are the first goals to address.”
Piastri is managed by former Grand Prix driver Mark Webber, and said he had received “a lot of advice” from the nine-time winner.
Webber’s main message, he said, was “just not to underestimate the challenge of F1 – it is big step up from what I’ve experienced previously. Preparation has been the number one piece of advice.”
