Mercedes looks less comfortable than previous years in F1 - Norris

Lando Norris believes Mercedes is on the back foot going into the 2021 Formula 1 season after it struggled in pre-season testing.

Mercedes completed just 304 laps across the three days of testing in Bahrain, 118 less than Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri who completed the most.

Not only did Mercedes complete the fewest laps, the W12 looked tricky to drive as Lewis Hamilton spun twice on the final two days of the test. 

Speaking after the conclusion of testing in Bahrain, Norris said he's confident Mercedes isn’t as strong as it was in 2020.

“We’ll wait and see, I don’t want to make any comments because you have Mercedes who are like a 30.2 or 30.0 and Lewis has had a few spins over the past few days so it doesn’t look easy for them, Norris said.  

“And even if they’re at 50 kilos or whatever they are of fuel, they don’t look like they’ve had quite as comfortable a pre-season test as the past few years, you would say.”

Assessing McLaren’s midfield rivals for the season ahead, Norris highlighted AlphaTauri after it lit up the timesheets on day three in Bahrain.

Yuki Tsunoda showed an impressive turn of pace on the final day, ending the the test less than a tenth shy of Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

“But then the AlphaTauri is looking strong - looking at onboards and seeing the data we can see they look like they’ve got a very strong car and it’s very nice to drive, good in all kinds of conditions,” Norris added. 

“I think the other thing is everything looks quite close, no-one looks miles ahead. I think the Red Bull has always looked strong over the past few days and that’s kind of expected.

“Maybe the shock is the Mercedes not looking quite as good as you’d expected, but I don’t think anything’s a surprise. I don’t know, it’s pre-season testing and everything’s up in the air.

“But other teams look good and I can say that just from looking at the AlphaTauri looks strong, they’ve looked like they’ve just had a clean few days and they look good on every run they’ve done and the long runs as well when everyone knows they’re just going to be on high fuel. So they look strong, a lot of other teams do as well, so we’ll find out soon.”