Lando Norris: McLaren driver shows ‘shocking’ British GP pace as Andrea Stella explains gap to Mercedes, Ferrari | F1 News

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

One year on from a one-two result at their home race, the defending world champions were generally the fourth fastest car behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull at the Silverstone Sprint weekend.

Nevertheless, Norris drove strongly to finish third in Saturday’s Sprint and fourth, helped by Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen’s recent problems, in Sunday’s Grand Prix.

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

“The results have been great – I’m happy with the P3 [in the Sprint] and p4 [in the Grand Prix],” Norris said Sky Sports F1.

“On the contrary, the speed was very shocking.

“Of course, I’m not happy with the car and the way it was going, I’m very happy that we finished P4 but we stayed without any problems, we avoided mistakes, the reliability was good.

“So the important things were good but the car was very difficult.

“We have a lot to improve.”

McLaren dropped 154 points behind leaders Mercedes at the top of the Constructors’ Championship, while Norris’ chances of defending his world title look remote at 82 points behind Antonelli despite the championship leader failing to score twice.

Oscar Piastri is 15 points adrift after finishing Sunday’s race in 11th place and had to be repaired at the end of the first stage after contact with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson.

McLaren needs to find a second half – Stella

Team principal Andrea Stella said the Grand Prix underlines the speed gap McLaren must deliver.

Overall, the race has confirmed that our performance is compatible with qualifying,” said Stella.

“So we’re still showing a good gap to Ferrari and Mercedes, almost half a second. I think Red Bull’s pace was close, I’d say.

“Lando was spending a lot of time following Hadjar, which was a bit of a shame. Otherwise, I think he could have been closer to the leaders. But, definitely, there is work to be done and I think this is half a second.”

After a difficult start to the season with their new MCL40 car – in addition to reliability issues with the Mercedes power unit – McLaren appeared to be coming back to the front especially in Japan and Miami, when Piastri and Norris challenged for wins respectively, but have only finished one podium in the five races since.

Stella said there are many things that make McLaren follow their biggest rivals at Silverstone.

“I think the fact that we’re not compatible with development is probably the biggest factor,” he said. “We’re seeing that everyone who brings the enhancements improves their mealtime power by three to ten times or something.

“And this won’t close the gap we have on Ferrari and Mercedes because I think it’s close to half a second but it can help a lot.

“The second thing I can say is that here the grip is very low, the conditions are difficult. The car slips. It is not predictable when the wind blows and there is a higher price for cars that can grip and pull hard because it is easy to guess the car.

“We have already talked about the power unit. It is possible that there are opportunities, let me say, by taking advantage of the power unit that we have.”

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