Norris: Pressure is on McLaren to make another step in F1 2020

Lando Norris admits there is pressure on McLaren to take another step forward in the upcoming Formula 1 season following the success of its 2019 campaign.

Norris helped McLaren beat midfield rivals Renault to claiming fourth spot in the constructors’ championship last season in what marked the Woking squad’s most competitive showing of the V6 hybrid era after years of struggles.

Boasting a strong driver line-up consisting of Norris and Carlos Sainz, and with the team’s restructured management now fully in place and spearheaded by the highly-rated Andreas Seidl, there is an expectation that McLaren will once again lead the midfield pack in 2020.

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, the Briton acknowledged there is added pressure on McLaren to make further improvements.

“We’ve only done one track so far and it’s a track which maybe doesn’t show exactly what everyone can do, and not everyone goes flat-out and shows what everyone can do,” he explained.

“I think it’s going to be very close with the midfield. I think you’ll have those top three teams that are a little bit ahead again. We’ve made progress but I’m sure all of the other teams have made progress at the same time. 

“There is pressure on the team to make another step like we did last year. I think that’s what a lot of fans think, but it’s really not easy to make an F1 car go a lot quicker and be on the same level as the top teams. We’re getting there, we’ve made progress, but we are woking at it.”

McLaren will find out where it stands in the pecking order when the heavily-delayed new season finally gets underway next month in Austria on July 5, which kicks off a run of eight races in just 10 weeks.

Having spent much of the enforced break restricted to the world of sim racing, Norris said he cannot wait to get back to the track and be reunited with his F1 machinery.

“Austria was one of my best results last year in fact, I think it was my joint best, which was P6, so I look forward to that,” Norris said.

“Budapest I enjoy, it's where I did my first test in F1 so I've always liked that place and I've got some good memories there as well.

"It's action-packed: Spa's in there, Monza's in there, there's a lot of racetracks where we have proper racing and we can have a lot of fun as race drivers, so I think it's a good calendar. Busy, but I think all of the tracks are ones we genuinely enjoy.”