Lando Norris pointed to the fact that he could not catch Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for the final spot on the podium at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as proof that McLaren’s car is not as dominant as some onlookers say.
Norris recovered from a qualifying crash in Jeddah and fought back from 10th on the grid to finish fourth.
Teammate Oscar Piastri won the race, taking the lead in the drivers’ championship from Norris in the process. It also marks the first time Piastri has held the lead in his career.
McLaren have won four of the opening five races and have a comfortable constructors’ championship lead already.
Between the McLaren drivers in Saudi Arabia were two rival teams, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen — who lost the lead due to a five-second penalty — and Leclerc joining Piastri on the podium.
Asked about being unable to get close enough to the Ferrari late on and the fact Verstappen was in the hunt for the win again, Norris repeated his frustration from earlier in the season about the suggestions that McLaren have a car way out in front of the rest.
“I don’t know why people are so surprised, they’re just as quick in most sessions, they’re just as quick as us in the race,” Norris told Sky Sports on Sunday evening.
“Just because we’re quick in practice, people just keep coming up with all this crap. I mean, they can keep saying what they want. We don’t believe we’re much ahead, as showed. I think probably Max was the quickest out there today if he didn’t have that five-second penalty, so we have work to do.”
Norris suggested McLaren show their hand earlier than their rivals in the weekend in terms of how the team approaches the practice sessions leading into qualifying.
“People keep saying that we’re the best, we’re the quickest, blah, blah, blah, but it’s just because we show a bit more pace in practice and then we don’t have anything left when it gets to quali, but that’s our way of doing things,” he added.
“That’s how we feel, we optimize things. If we didn’t do it that way, we’d be even further back, so no, I’m happy with the work we’re doing. People just need to recalibrate that we’re not … we have a great car and probably the quickest on average for sure, but clearly not enough.”
Heading to Miami, where he claimed his first F1 victory 12 months ago, Norris trails Piastri by 10 points. Verstappen is two points adrift of Norris in third.
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