Norris: It is impressive alpine pace for McLaren F1 in the Portuguese GP | “Difficult” F1

Norris followed both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon in the second training session in Portimao.

The alpine duo finished the day fifth and sixth respectively, while Norris only finished 12th overall, over 0.5 seconds slower.

In judging McLaren’s rivals for this weekend’s Grand Prix, he was not surprised by Ferrari’s competitiveness, but the fact that Alpine will pose a serious threat this weekend due to Friday’s practice session.

“I hope so, but Alpine was very quick today,” said Norris. “We know Ferrari is fast. If they are ahead of us, that’s no surprise. But we had a big gap with the alpine cars on the last two weekends and this weekend they seem to be a lot more competitive so the chance of getting into the third quarter is going to be a lot harder, two more cars we might drive.

“It’s exciting, but it makes our lives a little bit trickier and a little closer, so it’s going to be difficult.”

Norris didn’t reveal too much where the McLaren MCL35M lost compared to the opposition.

“The wind made it pretty hard for everyone,” added Norris. “I think it was a good day. We went through a lot of things, we had a few issues here and there in P1 and P2, so I didn’t do as many laps as I wanted.

On the subject of matching items

“We understand very well, but we have problems with the car in some areas of the track. It’s pretty good in some, but some areas were pretty weak and pretty slow. “