Lando Norris believes that McLaren will likely be challenged to uphold at The Circuit of the Americas this weekend its strong form of late due to the circuit’s characteristics that don’t favor team papaya’s MCL60.
McLaren’s progress since last summer has been nothing short of remarkable thanks to the team’s development programme that has seen its car go from strength to strength.
The outfit’s most recent outings in Japan and in Qatar yielded a double podium finish for Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri on both occasions, while the latter also claimed his first win in F1, the young rookie triumphing in Saturday’s Sprint event at Lusail.
But Austin’s COTA – a medium to high downforce layout – presents its own set of challenges for which McLaren’s charger is not particularly well suited according to Norris who will celebrate in Austin his 100th Grand Prix start.
“Not so confident, lots of slow speed corners which is not our strength,” replied the 23-year-old when asked about McLaren’s prospects in Texas.
“We know at these kinds of circuits Mercedes will be very strong, Ferrari, Aston [Martin].
“We knew we’d be strong at Qatar, but with the slow-speed corners I’m definitely not as confident, but nevertheless, I’m not saying it’s going to be a bad weekend.
“I think we can still fight. It’s just going to be a much bigger fight than we think.”
©McLaren
On Sunday evening in Qatar, despite his solid run to P3, Norris struggled to hide his disappointment.
The Briton was still kicking himself for what he considered as two sloppy qualifying sessions – in which track limits were a factor – that undermined his chances of claiming a win in the Sprint and a runner-up spot on Sunday.
“The thing which made it all worse is that I should have been on pole on both, I say both occasions, but at worst I should have had a first and second," he said.
“When I realised what could and should have been, I felt there were a lot of missed opportunities on my side.
“There have been plenty of other races where I haven’t made mistakes and I felt like I have performed very well, but the ones that get picked up are the bad races.
“It happens to everyone, I’ll try and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
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