The start of the season for McLaren was very uneven, but already at Imola Lando Norris climbed to the podium and finished third. McLaren Racing chief executive Zack Brown admitted that his team’s drivers in Bahrain were unable to earn points in the first stage of the championship, making him feel uncomfortable.
Zach Brown: “I left Bahrain feeling like I was back in 2017. I thought, ‘What’s going on? We’ve worked for five years to improve – so why did we relapse again?
But the good news is that the team was incredibly efficient, we found out why things were going so badly in Bahrain. And now I hope it was such an isolated case after all.
Of course the results always depend to some extent on the characteristics of a particular circuit, but in Imola we were already close to pole position after the qualifying results. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be possible to repeat this every weekend and the results will be better or worse. However, I still hope that our performance will continue to improve and that we will no longer drop to the level where we were in Bahrain.
Lando Norris is in no way inferior to the best drivers in the championship, he is incredibly fast while making very few mistakes, and when he does these are minor mistakes, such as not respecting the limits of the track.
He knows that our car is not the fastest yet, but he believes in the team, in its progress and he also really likes the atmosphere in McLaren. And I think while he will see signs of progress, he won’t be too worried about the fact that he still doesn’t have any wins. Last year he had the chance to fight for victory in three races in a row – at Spa, at Monza and at Sochi. Lando is ready to win, but to win, we have to create conditions for him.
Daniel Ricciardo is certainly more comfortable driving this car than last year. He spends races very strongly, he also handles qualifying much better. At the same time, he is willing to admit that he is not yet 100% adapted to the MCL36. He has a great relationship with Lando, he already knows the team well and we are happy that he is slowly getting into shape.”
Of course, Zach Brown shared his expectations regarding the upcoming Miami Grand Prix: “I think we will see a show that is next to nothing. A full house is expected in the stands. And I haven’t seen any races that would spark that much interest from sponsors.
McLaren’s guest area will be twice as big as usual – it will probably be the largest in the paddock, but we sold out there straight away. I believe that in the city as a whole there will be an atmosphere of a real holiday.
Our special guests in Miami are IndyCar stars Colton Herta and our Arrow McLaren SP team drivers Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenquist. Our brand ambassadors Emerson Fittipaldi and Mika Hakkinen will also be in attendance. We need a very strong team to represent McLaren so that there is someone to communicate with our sponsors throughout the week.
In 2023, the third American race, the Las Vegas Grand Prix, will appear on the championship calendar and I think this will be enough for North America, especially given that there are also Canadian and Mexican stages that are not that far from the United States. States. However, now I think we should start expanding our business in the Asian direction. I think this is the next area to develop.”
Source: F1 News
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
