Lando Norris has insisted that McLaren still upholds the third-fastest car at best in the 2024 Formula 1 season, despite landing his maiden win in Miami last time out.
McLaren introduced a comprehensive upgrade package at the previous round, which unlocked the pace that helped Norris to secure an elusive breakthrough success.
The Briton capitalised on a well-timed Safety Car period to emerge from the pit lane in the lead and controlled the pace to the end to defeat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
But Norris had lapped quicker than Verstappen, who was nursing a damaged car, on older rubber before his stop, prompting talk that McLaren had the faster package.
And having admitted that Miami would not exploit the entire potential of its updates, Norris is expecting McLaren to be even more competitive at Imola this weekend.
“I think we are better suited to Imola, potentially the upgrade a little bit as well,” Norris, who has taken top-three finishes on his last two visits to the Italian venue, said.
“Imola has generally been one of our most successful tracks as a team and for me as a driver.
“I think we definitely took a step forward from what I know. Other teams have upgrades too. So I don’t think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
“I know I’ve put good confidence forward to the team. I’ve said that we’re confident we can take steps forward. But I think I made it clear that we’re not going to be there every weekend.
“I was still sixth at the time and I can, I’m always honest, I’m happily going to say that I was lucky last weekend with the safety car and the strategy worked out perfectly.
“But that’s how races go sometimes. So I wasn’t just first because I was the quickest at the time, but I was quickest on track. And I think that was the first good sign we had.
“And then it turned into something more. But yeah, we were quickest at the time on track.
“And I think the whole weekend was turning into something good. And we were showing that the car made some good steps forward.
However, Norris believes that McLaren must deliver more enhancements to its MCL38 charger to become regular contenders to both Red Bull and Ferrari this season.
“But we need more if we’re going to challenge Ferrari more consistently, we’re going to challenge Red Bull more consistently,” he continued.
“But the team were doing a great job. They made some good steps and we have more things hopefully coming in the future. And those are what we need to be there more often.”
Pressed on where McLaren resides in the pecking order since introducing those encouraging upgrades in Miami, Norris responded: “We’re third. Still third.”
