Lando Norris admits his Formula 1 podium finish at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix still “blows his mind” given McLaren’s pace relative to the frontrunners this season.
Norris is the only driver outside of Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes to have claimed a top-three finish in 2022, finishing third in Imola.
McLaren has ended up trying to consolidate fourth place in the constructors’ championship rather than fight the top three teams, after starting the year on the back foot with persistent brake issues.
And while Norris has consistently outperformed his machinery – scoring points in 10 of the 13 races so far – he felt McLaren’s general performance this year proves his podium at Imola was a remarkable result.
“For myself and my driving and so on, I’m happy,” Norris said, as quoted by F1.com. “Some good highlights, I don’t know how I got a podium in Imola, it just blows my mind. With the car that we have that’s quite some achievement so still makes me smile now, but then there are still a lot of positives.
“It’s just now we have a lot of work to do. The gap to the guys ahead is still massive and I guess yes, it’s close on Saturday, but everyone is closer on Saturday, even last place is a lot closer.
“It’s just the spread on Sunday is bigger than what it has been in past, and we’ve got to work on that.
“I’ll enjoy my break first and then we will work on it and see what we can do for next time. I think reasonable start to the season, so I’m happy with it.”
McLaren is currently fifth in the constructors’ standings after the first half of the season, 75 points worse off than at the same stage as last year.
But while McLaren’s pace has faded from the leading outfits, Norris believes the team has made huge strides from the beginning of the year and acknowledged their grind behind the scenes was a huge part of why it remains in contention with Alpine for P4 in the constructors’ championship.
“I think the main thing is that of course we just didn’t come into the season as strong as we needed to,” said Norris.
“How we’ve done since then, since the first the race I think has been very good and strong. Considering we are still fighting for fourth in the constructors against a team which has been a lot more competitive since day one shows how good of a job we’ve done in many other areas.
“Our consistency, reliability in many ways, pit stops, strategy, a lot of things have been very strong. Just we didn’t start as well as what we wanted but I think we’ve made some good progress since then, so as long as we continue to do that after the break then I’ll be happy.
“But it’s just been tough you know – you always want to fight for more and fight for higher positions and the gap we have to the top three teams is still a big one, so we just need to focus on closing that down.”
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