Frustrated Lando Norris Plays the Blame Game With Clear F1 Intentions of Higher Success From McLaren: “I Don’t Want to Settle For..”

Looks like the blame game has become 2023’s new trend. Do you recall when Lewis Hamilton blamed Mercedes for not listening to them? Following right in his countryman’s footsteps, Lando Norris has blamed his team. What is the reason behind him blaming his team one may ask? Well, the intention behind the blame is to push McLaren into improving the sluggish MCL60. As Norris isn’t ready to settle for a slow car, let’s find out the whole story behind the blame game.

Once a title challenger, McLaren is now at the very back of the grid in 2023. Zak Brown believes the major slump started during the second half of last season when the development pace was slow. Many suggest that Zak Brown’s cutting and chopping of personnel will bring Aston Martin-like progress to McLaren. However, Pedro de la Rosa believes it’s the equipment and wind tunnel which is the problem. With a new wind tunnel in sight, Lando Norris decided to play the blame game, pushing his team to provide a better car. 

Lando Norris recently explained the reason behind the mistakes he has made. The Briton doesn’t want to settle for a result outside the Top 10 and hence pushes the car. With the car underperforming and the limits not known, Norris pushes the car beyond its comfort zone and pays the price. He feels like he’s holding himself back and not finding a rhythm in the car. The 25-year-old suggested it’s a mixture of the MCL60 being a tricky car to drive and his efforts to push the car beyond the limits, which is leading to the mistakes.

According to Speedcafe.com, Lando Norris said, “I don’t want to settle for a P13 or a P12 [in qualifying], so it’s just a little bit of overdriving potentially. I would say I’m not quite finding the rhythm that I want and the knowledge of every corner of where the limit exactly is. But it is a mixture of it being a tricky car to drive, one that is easy to go over the limit on anyway. And then when you combine those two, a tricky car with trying to overpush and overdrive that little bit too much, then I make the mistakes as I have.”

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Lando Norris signed a contract with McLaren till 2025 and expects the team to provide a championship-winning car. With McLaren providing a monstrosity of MCL60, the Briton expects more and pushes the team further by being critical of the car. Norris recently explained the area where the MCL60 lacks performance. 

Lando Norris reveals the area where the MCL60 lags behind 

Norris suggested that the MCL60 was trickier to drive around Albert Park. In an attempt to extract the most performance out of a car, the setups sometimes become unfavorable for the drivers, giving them a very short operating window. The McLaren driver revealed that the MCL60 lacks downforce and has a higher drag coefficient compared to its competitors. This results in the car being slow both in corners and on the straight. 

According to Speedcafe.com, Lando Norris said, “And the picture is actually consistent with what we kind of expected right from the start – we knew that we didn’t have enough downforce on the car, and we knew there’s more drag than ideal. This has manifested itself in terms of lap time in the first three races, and in Melbourne, if anything, I would say the car was trickier to drive and more difficult to put clean laps together.”

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What do you make you Lando Norris’ blame games?