McLaren F1’s  Lando Norris had a busy time racing in the streets of Baku. Tasked with making places in a bid to finish in the points, the Briton also had to deal with team orders on the radio. In the closing stages of the race, Norris was trying to give Ricciardo the hurry-up. However, he finished in P10 behind his McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo.  In a post-race interview, the young Briton explained the situation during the race and also answered if there are any upgrades planned. 

Lando Norris gives his thoughts on McLaren’s improved form

When asked by the interviewer if McLaren made a step forward regardless of the situation, Norris let his thoughts known. “Not really, we were out in Q2 yesterday and we don’t want that to be happening,” Lando began saying. 

“Aston were clearly ahead of us and quicker than us. Mercedes still a long way ahead. Alpines. I think we were close with Alpines. Yesterday in qualifying they were maybe ahead  but today I think on pure pace we were ahead but couldn’t overtake them because they were so quick on the straights. It’s a tough one but I don’t know, everyone is making progress, I think we have made progress and I am happy with the team because of it.”

He noted that every team up and down the grid is making in-roads with the upgrades and that McLaren’s goal is to stay ahead of the rest. The interviewer also asked why he was down all the time and that there must be some good. “Yeah there is and everyone’s working hard,” he said. 

“It’s not so easy to improve otherwise everyone would be just much quicker all of a sudden and everyone will be able the close the gap. So it’s a simple game of one weekend terrible and fitting a new front wing and going two seconds quicker like we need to.”

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“I wanna be positive. I am positive that the team are doing an amazing job and working hard. But it takes time.”   

Norris believes his team needs an upgrade package

After starting the year on a backfoot, McLaren was in a hurry to fix its issues. A shocking third-place finish in Imola helped boost the team’s morale. While Norris acknowledged the gains made, he also believes that there is more improvement the Woking-based outfit can do. 

“I think there are some slightly tougher areas,” Norris said. “I want to believe in general we’ve probably improved the car on average through all the tracks.” 

“I think there’s still a few which we’re yet to go to where we struggled a lot last season, and I think are different in terms of characteristics to all of the ones that we’ve been to. So places like Zandvoort, and things like that.” 

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Lando now believes that the team has to explore the ranges in different types of corners and tracks. He concluded that McLaren needs a whole upgrade package in general. So what do you think? Can Mclaren come out on top in the battle in the midfield?