Why Lando Norris rates the Circuit of The Americas in Austin as a less ideal track for McLaren and how he plans to improve in qualifying
Only Max Verstappen has scored better than Lando Norris over the past three Formula One weekends. But Norris doesn’t necessarily expect to be able to continue his streak of three consecutive podiums ahead of the 2023 USA Grand Prix in Austin. He’s “not that confident” about that, Norris said in the press conference.
Reason: Different omens apply in Austin than most recently in Lusail, according to Norris. “Qatar was a track that we knew would suit us with a lot of medium-fast and fast sections. At times we were on par with Red Bull there.”
“It’s different here. Here it’s more about slow passages. That’s why I’m not so confident. But I’m not saying it’s going to be a bad weekend either. We can still fight, but we’ll probably have to fight a bit more than we did last time,” the McLaren driver said. He therefore expects a “difficult” event.
With what expectation Norris goes into qualifying
And what does Norris expect from qualifying, especially since the sprint format is also used in Austin? In Lusail he had bad experiences with it and made costly mistakes in both qualifying sessions.
Now Norris says, “I’m not going to do much differently.”
“Which made it worse [in Qatar]: I could have been on pole both times, at least for [Saturday’s] sprint, maybe not for Sunday. In the worst case, I should have been first and second. Then when I think about what could have been and how good our race pace was on Sunday, I think about a missed opportunity on my part.”
“On the other hand,” says Norris, he has also contested “many races” in the 2023 Formula One season without making a mistake and topped it off with “good performances.” “But of course, it’s always the bad races that come back to haunt me.”
“So yes: I made mistakes and that frustrated me. It’s moving on now, though, because these things happen. And I just try to avoid that kind of thing in the future. “
Norris makes 100th Formula One Grand Prix start
And the near future holds a special milestone for Norris in Austin: his 100th Grand Prix appearance in Formula One.
He’s “pretty proud” of that, Norris says. “Not many people achieve that. Even a lot of drivers who make it to Formula One don’t. And I want to stay in it for a long time. That’s my next goal.”
Norris had joined McLaren in Formula One for the 2019 season and will drive his fifth year with the traditional British team in 2023. “In that [time] there have been a lot of ups and downs, but also great memories and great successes. It’s been a nice journey so far,” he says.
Norris pushes for first Formula One win
The question about his best races follows, to which Norris initially has no answer. Then he says, “The obvious ones are the ones I finished on the podium. The first pole position, the first podium result in Formula 1, you always remember something like that, of course, although they weren’t necessarily the best races.”
Norris classifies the McLaren one-two with Daniel Ricciardo at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix in Monza as “special.” “Purely in terms of the result,” he says.
“This year we’ve had a lot of good races, been going strong. Silverstone was probably the highlight there as my home race,” Norris explains. But he says he wants to create new “best memories” as soon as possible and “overwrite the previous ones with the first win. “
