Lando Norris: McLaren driver reflects on ‘pretty amazing’ British GP pace as Andrea Stella details gap with Mercedes, Ferrari | F1 News

Lando Norris says McLaren has “a lot to improve” after an “admirable” pace at the British Grand Prix despite finishing fourth.

After a year of one-two results at their home races, the defending world champions were generally the fourth fastest car at the Silverstone sprint weekend behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

Nevertheless, Norris drove strongly to finish third and then fourth in Saturday’s sprint, aided by late problems from Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen in Sunday’s main grand prix.

Still, the world champion wasn’t letting those results cloud the bigger picture.

“The results have been pretty amazing – I’m happy with P3 (in the sprint) and P4 (in the grand prix),” Norris said. Sky Sports F1.

“On the contrary, the speed was quite astonishing.

“Not really happy with the car and how it was. It makes me even happier that we finished P4 but we just stayed out of trouble, we avoided mistakes, the reliability was good.

“So the things that mattered were good but the car was very hard.

“We have a lot to improve on.”

McLaren is 154 points adrift of leader Mercedes in the constructors’ championship standings, while Norris’ chances of defending his world title remain 82 points behind Antonelli despite the championship leader’s two recent failures to score.

Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson had to pit for repairs at the end of the opening lap after contact, finishing Sunday’s race in 11th, 15 points behind Oscar Piastre.

McLaren need to find half a second – Stella

Team principal Andrea Stella said the Grand Prix underlined the pace gap McLaren had to build on.

“Overall, the race ensured that our performance was in line with qualification,” said Stella.

“So we still show a decent gap to Ferrari and Mercedes, probably around half a second. I think the pace was close with Red Bull, I would say.

“Lando was spending a lot of time behind Hazor, which was a bit of a shame. Otherwise, I think he could have been closer to the leaders. But, of course, there’s work to do and I think it’s on the scale of half a second.”

After a difficult start with their all-new MCL40 car – apart from reliability issues with Mercedes’ power unit – McLaren have seen a return to the front, particularly in Japan and Miami, when Piastre and Norris challenged for victory respectively, but have since managed just one podium finish in five races.

Stella says there are many reasons why McLaren have overtaken their main rivals at Silverstone.

“I think the fact that we’re out of sync with the upgrade is probably the biggest single factor,” he said. “We see that everyone who comes with the upgrade improves their lap times by potentially three tenths or something.

“And of course it won’t close the gap we have to Ferrari and Mercedes because I think it’s more of a half second but of course it will be very helpful.

“The second factor, I would say the grip is very low here. The conditions are difficult. The car slides. It’s quite unpredictable with the wind and there’s a premium over cars that have more grip and more downforce because the car is a little easier to predict.

“We’ve already talked about power units. There’s probably some opportunity, let me say, by using more of the power units we have available.”

Formula 1’s summer run continues with the Belgian Grand Prix at legendary Spa-Francorchamps on July 17-19, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports now – no contract, cancel anytime