Lando Norris demonstrated a remarkable performance in recent times, and also in his native soil at Silverstone partly due to an upgrade package introduced over the past couple of races. Fast-forward to the Hungarian Grand Prix, the British driver managed to bag the second position after Max Verstappen.
This was the second consecutive podium finish after the British Grand Prix. The streak of enhanced performance makes it evident that the upgrades worked for the McLaren team and Norris.
Regardless, he believes that the conduct has not been up to the mark and was lagging in certain aspects. Lando Norris said, according to Speedcafe, “I can honestly say they’ve been pretty poor in terms of, as a team, with our facility – our facility looks amazing, but it’s not even up to the spec of what it has been of other teams. These little things also, wind tunnel, simulator, all these things, we’re now on track to what we should be doing and probably should have done years ago.”
Lando Norris has described his team as ‘pretty poor’ in recent seasons as he looked ahead to future developments:
“That’s something I look forward to and therefore I’m very happy about, because the last few seasons have been pretty poor…”#F1 #Formula1 #DutchGP #McLaren pic.twitter.com/L2J1h6vIW6
— McLaren F1 News 🏴🇦🇺 (@TheMcLarenZone) August 17, 2023
This kind of commentary makes it clear that the Briton is not very happy with the team given that he has been bagging a good amount of points and even outperforming 7XWDC champion Lewis Hamilton. McLaren’s lately made advancements shocked competitors who hope to replicate similar results with in-season car enhancements.
Latest upgrades at McLaren
In his fifth Formula 1 season, all spent with McLaren, Norris is the face of the team when compared to his newbie teammate Oscar Piastri who joined the squad right after Daniel Ricciardo’s departure.
However, the 2023 car of the team, the MCL60, did not satisfy its objectives at the outset of the season, which created issues. Nevertheless, subsequent races were impacted as a result of a significant improvement that was introduced at the Austrian Grand Prix.
LANDO NORRIS LEADS THE BRITISH GRAND PRIX!!! pic.twitter.com/kwza6savjG
— hayley ♡ (@formulahayls) August 12, 2023
The fact that McLaren seemed to have lost its way in 2022 and was falling further behind this year, its turnaround is impressive. These transformative projects were handled by y the incoming team leader, Andrea Stella, and was overseen by CEO Zak Brown. Though the newly built wind tunnel and other features will not be fully operational until next year, McLaren has begun to see the positive effects of its structural overhaul.
Concerns over Norris’ future with the team have been soothed by McLaren’s major progress. The British driver has been the focus of numerous rumors and skepticism in recent months despite never having pushed for another Formula 1 team. Despite Norris’ commitment to McLaren under his contract until the end of 2025, this rumor still lingers.