Lando Norris feel that McLaren F1 Team are much closer to that Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team and to Red Bull Racing at the head of the field in 2021.
The Briton took a strong fourth place at the season opener Bahrain Grand Prix last month just afterwards Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas.
However, Norris doesn’t yet believe that McLaren is the best of the others behind these two teams Scuderia Ferrari and Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda especially on the Bahrain International Circuit.
“We’re close, we’re not far from Mercedes and Red Bull compared to last season,” Norris told Motorsport.com. “I think we’ve closed the gap pretty much and hopefully closed even more on some tracks.
“It’s hard to tell if we’re the best of each other. I don’t know what the AlphaTauri’s pace was like, but I think the car is good.”
Norris said McLaren started the race, based on what they learned during pre-season testing and Friday night’s second practice session, confident of leaving Ferrari behind in Bahrain.
However, he believes the battle between them and with AlphaTauri will be close and he predicts days when the order between the teams will be mixed up.
“I think we kind of knew that from the runs in FP2 and the test we did here,” said Norris. “I think we have an understanding of what [Ferrari] can do.
“Charles was ahead of us in qualifying last year and the Ferrari can be very quick in qualifying. During the races they seemed to be struggling. I think we were much faster at the pace which was a good thing, but there will probably be some races where they can maintain the tires better and be a lot faster.
“It’s going to go back and forth between us and Ferrari and with AlphaTauri it seems to be pretty close between us, so I’m looking forward to the fight.”
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