Lando Norris: I expected our pace to be faster

The McLaren team took 4th place in the Constructors’ Championship, but both drivers were not very happy with the way the season finale went as they expected to show a higher pace during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix distance.

Lando Norris (5th): “Everything didn’t go in the best way. I only expected the pace to be a little faster, but that didn’t work out, which we can only regret.

I hoped that our speed would be even faster and that I would be able to attack the guys in front of us. It wasn’t that they were much faster, just one or two tenths per lap, but it was enough to keep them in front.

Overall it was a difficult race, but I’m still happy, because we could hardly have achieved more. Although we lost a bit at the pit stop. If we hadn’t done this, could we have gotten ahead of George Russell? Maybe. But that wouldn’t change much. Our team did what it had to do, and that is the most important thing.

As for the Sergio Perez incident, I tried to skip it but he just bumped into me! I don’t know what she did there, but his actions were, quite frankly, somewhat careless.”

Oscar Piastri (6th): “I don’t think we were as fast as we would have liked today. In the first two parts of the distance I had some problems – maybe there were some things I could have done better from a racing point of view. But in the end we just didn’t have the pace.

The fact is that during training we could not work on long series of laps, so we had to study the operation of the tires during the race, and that is always not so good. Of course everyone was on an equal footing, but I had never driven a Formula 1 car on this circuit before and that also had a small effect.

I think I improved on the last part and executed it with confidence. It’s nice to end the season on such a note. But overall we just weren’t fast enough.”