Lando Norris is pretty happy with his performances so far in 2022, but knows that he still doesn’t completely get to grips with the McLaren
Lando Norris continues to be McLaren’s life insurance policy in 2022. While teammate Daniel Ricciardo has managed to contribute just eleven points so far, Norris stands at 48 points after seven races and virtually single-handedly moves McLaren to fourth in the constructors’ standings. Without Norris’ points, the team would currently only be eighth.
The dominance over Ricciardo can also be seen in the team-internal duels: Norris currently leads 6-1 in qualifying, with his only defeat coming in Barcelona when he was stricken with tonsillitis and narrowly missed out on making the top 10 due to his time being cut by track limits.
The Englishman has also only finished behind Ricciardo once in the race so far: in the season opener in Bahrain, when McLaren finished 14th and 15th anyway, unable to score any points.
“All I can say is that I’m very happy with my performances at the moment,” says Norris, who is currently seventh in the World Championship. “But I’m also a bit surprised at how well it’s gone in the last few weeks. “
He insists he is getting a better understanding of the MCL36. “But it’s still a new car. That’s not just for Daniel and other people, but for everyone. There are still a lot of things I have to try and adapt,” he says, seeing himself as not yet at the zenith.
“It’s still a learning process and just because I’ve been at McLaren for a while now, I don’t know how to make everything work perfectly – quite the opposite,” the McLaren driver said. “For me it’s a new car with new tyres, new set-ups, new everything.”
He says he still can’t drive the car the way he wants to in many ways. But that’s the same for other drivers, he says. He cites his former teammate Carlos Sainz as an example, who is clearly losing out to Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in the first seven races and has yet to win a qualifying duel.
“Charles is clearly better than Carlos this year. Carlos beat him last year, but this year he seems to be in a much more comfortable position. And the same goes for Perez, who is in a much better position,” Norris said.
“There have been a few changes to the car and you can see that it suits some drivers more than others,” he continues. “But everyone needs time to understand all these things. And I feel I’m starting to understand it. “
