“Not any time soon” - Lando Norris’ frank response to whether McLaren can win races

Lando Norris is doubtful that McLaren can win races in F1 “any time soon”.

Norris is still waiting for his first victory in F1, becoming the driver with the most podium finishes in the sport’s history without a win at the Australian Grand Prix last month.

McLaren have slipped back in the pecking order at the start of this year, even at high-speed circuits like Suzuka where they excelled in 2023.

Despite being clearly behind Ferrari, McLaren boss Andrea Stella insisted that McLaren can think about winning races once their major upgrades are added to the car.

Norris was asked about Stella’s comments in the pre-race FIA press conference at the Chinese Grand Prix.

“Not any time soon that’s for sure,” Norris replied. “I think we can. Right place, right time. I think if we improve the car where we need to. Honestly, there weren’t too many frustrations with Suzuka.

“Everything went pretty much as expected. I don’t think we did a perfect job and we probably should have finished one place higher up potentially, but I don’t think it was far off.

“We’ve been in the same place all season. We’ve been behind Red Bull, Ferrari and a bit of a step ahead of the other two teams come the race. That’s exactly how last weekend went.

“I don’t there were too many frustrations. We know the issues, we know what we have to improve and we know if we can improve them, Andrea is right, if we can, we can win races this year. That’s an if. We have to work hard in some of these certain areas that have been a big challenge for us over the last many years. If we can then I am confident we can have some good races.”

McLaren are expected to struggle in Shanghai given the long, low-speed corners.

Norris admitted that they continue to be a major weakness of the current McLaren package.

“The long corners. Just like Turn 1,” he added. “This type of corner isn’t good for us - similar to Zandvoort. That kind of experience for us.

“We’ve got some things to try and we’re constantly trying to improve these areas. This area we know is one of our biggest weaknesses. We get away with it in qualifying but especially into the race it becomes a bigger problem for us.”