Lando Norris has admitted that McLaren is yet to optimize the upgrade package it has brought to the Canadian Grand Prix after falling just short of Mercedes during Sprint Qualifying on Friday. The Briton added that the team needs more time with some of the new elements on the car as they hope to continue progressing throughout the weekend.
Both McLaren and Mercedes have brought major upgrades to Canada and now find themselves at the front of the field for the sprint. George Russell secured pole for the shortened race with a 1:12.965 lap time and will be joined by teammate Kimi Antonelli on the front row.
McLaren is tasked with trying to challenge the Silver Arrows as Lando Norris secured P3 for the race while Oscar Piastri starts in P4. But Norris has admitted that the Woking-based team is yet to optimize its upgrade package after the sprint shootout on Saturday. When asked how the car felt following a difficult FP1, the reigning world champion replied, saying [via F1TV]:
“It certainly felt decent. Some things are maybe a bit more questionable, and we probably need just more time to review things and look back, especially because it’s such a weird track. There’s such low grip, you’re kind of bouncing off curbs and stuff. So you’re not getting kind of a true representation of everything and it’s hard to kind of back it up with what we have in the wind tunnel and things like that.”
“So, we need a bit more time with some bits, and we’ll probably reintroduce some of them next weekend or in Barcelona.”
Norris then concluded by saying that the MCL40 was still working well during sprint qualifying and that he felt especially comfortable in the car for the first time during the weekend directly in SQ3.
Lando Norris happy with P3 in sprint qualifying after difficult start to the Canadian GP weekend
Speaking after the Canadian GP sprint qualifying session on Friday, Lando Norris also added that he was pleasantly surprised with his P3 result. The 26-year-old added that he was lacking confidence in the car in FP1, but a few tweaks meant he was able to extract more out of his McLaren in sprint qualifying.
When asked for his thoughts about the result, Norris said:
“Very good result actually, a good surprise. I think after this morning, we were a little bit worried about how far off we were, and more just the lack of confidence in the car.”
“But we made some tweaks. We changed some things and seemed to make a good improvement. So, happy with third.”
Norris then critiqued his own final lap in Q3, claiming that he could have gotten more out of it than he eventually did to set the 1:13.280 time. But he added that he was still not too far off George Russell out in front, which points to a positive turnaround from practice for the Papaya team.
