Miami Grand Prix victor Lando Norris has stated he remained “confident” that McLaren could win Formula 1 races in 2024 despite “a lot of people” doubting the team.
McLaren’s remarkable mid-season turnaround last season from struggling to score points to being a front-running fixture saw Norris become a regular podium visitor.
However, Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s dominance prevented him from landing an elusive F1 success, with team-mate Oscar Piastri beating him in the Qatar Sprint.
But at the 110th attempt, Norris capitalised on a well-timed Safety Car to retain the lead and surge clear to take the chequered flag for his maiden win in the top flight.
Norris believes his breakthrough in Miami has provided vindication to the optimism that he retained prior to the season against those who doubted him and McLaren.
“I mean I said at the beginning of the year we could win races,” Norris said. “A lot of people doubted what I could say and the fact that I said that.
“I think they doubted that McLaren could win races, they doubted that I could win races. But I was confident. I was deep down, I knew that we had our time coming.
“So the team had done an amazing job. We weren’t even into Q2 here last year.
“So now the fact we’re on top, we won a race, the team have done an insane job to kind of go from where we were to where we are now.”
McLaren introduced a sizeable upgrade package in Miami, which Norris has credited as being instrumental to him having the pace to usurp the Red Bulls and Ferrari.
“We’ve chipped away, especially the last couple of months, there’s been a lot of hard work and whenever you bring an upgrade, it’s not easy to kind of just go out and execute and just show that it’s better, but little things come together, all these little bits coming together it turns into a perfect day like it did today,” he continued.
“So of course I have to say a big thanks to all of McLaren everyone back in the factory everyone that’s here because I doubt it would have been a lot less likely that I won today without these upgrades and without the hard work that they’ve been putting into everything so I would like to say it’s the start.
“But now we’re already hungry for more. But yeah we’ll keep our heads down, we’ll keep pushing and I’m sure we can be here a lot more often.”
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