Lando Norris of McLaren says the 2022 F1 World Championship may need to be prepared to race with last year’s bottom team, the Haas F1 Team.
McLaren fought at the forefront of several races in the 2021 F1 World Championship. Daniel Ricciardo won the F1 Italian Grand Prix, followed by Norris in 2nd place to finish 1-2. At the F1 Russian Grand Prix, Norris was a candidate for victory until the rain hit the end of the race.
In contrast, the Haas F1 Team was forced to run backwards without developing the 2021 car and was largely delayed in the race. Normally, a safety car was needed late in the race to finish the race on the same lap as the podium finishers.
However, F1’s attempt to tighten the field led to a major change in regulations in 2022, creating a whole new car. This gave the Haas F1 Team a chance to bring great gains to fight in the midfield.
The F1 pre-season test showed that F1’s aim might have served its purpose, but McLaren had a braking problem with the MCL36 in the F1 Bahrain test, which wasn’t the three days he expected.
The 2022 midfield is expected to be tight, and Lando Norris wouldn’t be surprised to see Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher fight wheel-to-wheel.
McLaren was often treated as a lap behind the race with the Haas F1 Team last year, but Lando Norris thinks this season could be the opposite scenario.
“Right now, the Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes teams seem to be the fastest, and I think all the other teams, from us to Haas, are pretty competitive,” Lando Norris told reporters.
“Even Haas looks very fast. I was surprised to see how late they were last year and was impressed by the progress they seem to have made so far.”
“I think even we need to be prepared to race and qualify with them and we’ll see this week.”
Lando Norris was arguably the busiest driver in the F1 Bahrain test in the sense that he ran for three consecutive days as Daniel Ricciardo was quarantined after being infected with the new coronavirus. However, the total of 199 laps was only two laps more than George Russell of Mercedes F1 who was riding the machine for half the time.
“It was ok and maybe I could have done better. It was definitely not the smoothest test. The problem made it difficult to run the laps I wanted,” Lando Norris said.
“I was able to run one or two laps, so I understand the tires when they are new and fresh, but we didn’t have the opportunity to test the old tires with fuel, so we I don’t really understand. “
“It wasn’t bad, but we’re lagging behind in many areas compared to other teams that have to focus this week.”
Category: Category: F1 / Lando Norris / McLaren / Haas