After Daniel Ricciardo’s efforts to adapt to the McLaren MCL35M, team boss Andreas Seidl admitted at the Monaco GP weekend that the current car needs a “special” driving style.
And while Ricciardo’s struggles to achieve this were evident since he was on his backfoot in the races in early 2021, teammate Norris’ situation wasn’t as clear.
But despite taking the podiums in Imola and Monaco, Norris says it was difficult to get the most out of the current McLaren – and he’s unable to push it the way he could in previous cars.
“This year the car is different and there are different things about the car that you have to drive differently,” he said before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
“I now learn a lot about the car in every race we contest. I would say Monaco was my best qualifying I’ve ever done, but I’ve made mistakes in previous qualifying and races because I didn’t know about it Car enough.
“I’m still learning a lot and especially in Bahrain for example and in the first few races of the season I drove too much like last year’s car and had to adapt a lot to this year’s car.
“So there are definitely a lot of differences and it wasn’t easy from last year, the last two years, to this year.”
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M
Photo by: Erik Junius
Norris said a penchant for car setup he learned in the junior categories won’t work with the current McLaren, which is why he’s still gaining a foothold with it.
“I can’t just drive it right away and then just be a better driver,” he said. “I had to adapt to a lot of different things and still can’t necessarily drive it the way I want to, as a preference for how I’ve driven in Formula 3 and Formula 4 and such.
“I can’t drive it the way I want to. So you have to adapt a bit, and every car in F1 is different and you have to get used to it.”
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Ricciardo weathered a tough Monaco GP weekend and has since spent time in the McLaren simulator trying to make progress in order to be more comfortable.
“I spent a few days on the Sim last week and it was really just trying to take a step back and understand what is going on and let’s say how the car works and what needs to be done to make the car getting works well, “said the Australian.
“In a way, I have – I don’t want to say I started from scratch because I definitely learned a bit in the first few races – but I was just more open to any approach. We just tried a lot of different things.” and even things that, say, don’t feel right, we try them and then understand why they don’t work.
“So we just played around a lot. And certainly some things seem clearer to me now, and I think it’s been really productive to do that. So I’m just looking forward to bringing it in.” [action]. “
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