Lando Norris, McLaren, Nurburgring, 2020

Norris had more confidence with older-spec McLaren parts

2020 Eifel Grand Prix

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Lando Norris said he felt more confident in his McLaren after reverting to a pre-Russian Grand Prix specification for this weekend’s race.

McLaren ran the new parts on Norris’s car only in Sochi. This weekend it has swapped them between its two drivers. While Carlos Sainz Jnr has the new hardware, Norris qualified ahead of his team mate.

“I have the older parts on the car, or not the new bits,” Norris explained. “We kind of stuck more with what we knew was decent just to give myself some more confidence

“After Sochi I wasn’t feeling as happy. I had the new bits there and I just never felt very confident. So now we stuck more with something older, but something we knew worked and it seems good.”

Although qualifying eighth matches his starting position from the Russian Grand Prix, Norris feels he realised the car’s potential more than he did at Sochi.

“I’m happy with what we did as a team and my laps,” he said. “Maybe not perfect, but the group ahead are too far ahead of us. So I feel confident.

“I feel like I’m in a good position with the car. I feel like I’m doing a reasonable job. We’re just not quite as quick as the other guys here.

“If you look back on Sochi, I feel like we struggled a lot more – although we were maybe in a higher position and we had more potential. This weekend I feel like we maximised our job a little bit more.”

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2020 Eifel Grand Prix

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4 comments on “Norris had more confidence with older-spec McLaren parts”

  1. Back to the drawing board and some more head scratching.

  2. They need their new wind tunnel!

  3. Oh that’s not good. I thought they had new wings on both and had taken the next step on the front end.

  4. Really rate Norris, hope McLaren and Riccardo bring him further along

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