Lando Norris shares McLaren data to dispute clear fastest car verdict over Red Bull

Lando Norris has refuted suggestions McLaren have the fastest car in F1 2024, adamant it was only his tyre delta to Max Verstappen that made it appear that way in Spain.

Although Norris once again had to settle for second place behind Verstappen, 2.2s down at the chequered flag at the Spanish Grand Prix, the Briton had been catching the Red Bull in the final stint.

Lando Norris reveals why he ‘looked quicker’ than Max Verstappen

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

He says that’s not because the MCL38 is faster than the RB20, it was purely down to tyre delta.

Norris ran longer than Verstappen in the first stint – 23 laps to 17 – which opened the door for shorter stints after his two pit stops.

He was on the medium Pirellis for 24 laps compared to Verstappen’s 27 and then put on the softs for the run to the line for 19 laps to Verstappen’s 22.

Norris emerged from the pits after his second stop some eight seconds down on Verstappen but with his tyres three laps newer, he was able to close the gap to 2.2s.

“Even after reviewing last weekend, I don’t necessarily think we had a much quicker car than Red Bull,” he told the media including PlanetF1.com.

“I looked quicker than Max because of my extended stints, having a decent tyre delta over him. I think six laps in the first part, and four laps in a second. Around Barcelona, it’s a big difference.

“It might only be four laps, and for people who don’t know it might not look like anything, but four laps of tyre delta to another car is quite extreme in terms of lap time difference.

“So that was actually the time difference between what Max was doing and what I was doing. Not that we were miles quicker on just an outright lap basis. I think that we had a good strategy that we looked so much quicker.”

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Lando Norris needs to tidy up ‘tiny little things’

Having declared after the previous race that he was missing “one per cent” that would allow him to achieve more grand prix wins, Norris was asked where he could find that.

He believes it’s the “tiny little things” that are making the difference in his battles against Verstappen and Red Bull such as those “couple of metres” at the start in Spain.

“I don’t think there’s an easy answer to it,” he said.

“Even my start was not a bad start. It was just a couple of metres, not a perfect start of course. I think, at the time, maybe it was a bit over-critical on saying that it was a bad start, I didn’t have a bad start.

“Typically my starts have been very good, and very consistent, and one of the best and up there with one of the best.

“But I want to be the best so just in every little area there’s all these little things, just a little bit more preparation, or a bit more practice on Fridays or Saturdays and getting these things nailed down.

“But my start has not been bad. It’s just Max was a slightly tiny, tiny, better one and that tiny difference made the biggest difference in the world on our actual finishing positions. So honestly, I think I was really a bit over-critical.

“And it’s not with everything, there are so many areas along the race where things can go wrong. So I don’t think we need to overreact in any way.

“Again, like I said, after all the reviews we’ve done, I’m very happy with how, as soon as we got through Turn 1 and even the reaction in Turn 1 , I could have easily tried to be a hero and gone around outside of Max, and that only would have caused a crash, and I would have ended up taking George out so I think I was smart in doing that.

“After Turn 2, everything was very good, even our strategy. I know we got a lot of criticism on strategy, but that’s from people who have no idea what they’re talking about.

“So I’m very happy with probably 99.5 per cent. Just a couple of metres off the line cost me last weekend.”

“There are just tiny little things I needed to tidy up and as a team, we have to do a slightly better job,” he added.

“But a lot of it was at the level that it needs to be, so we could go on and win some races. I definitely think that’s possible with how the team is performing, how I’m performing so far, how I’m performing at the minute.

“But we’re against one of the best drivers ever in Formula 1, one of the best-performing teams in Formula 1, so everything needs to be executed perfectly well and last weekend everything was not executed perfectly well. That one thing that wasn’t, that’s what cost us.”

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