Norris reveals “one big problem” McLaren is facing with 2022 F1 car

McLaren endured a woefully uncompetitive showing in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix as Norris finished 15th, one place behind teammate Daniel Ricciardo. 

Speaking ahead of the second round of the season in Saudi Arabia, Norris conceded that McLaren’s MCL36 challenger is currently being held back by an overall lack of grip. 

“Downforce, just overall grip,” Norris said. “It’s quite a simple thing. There’s quite a few times when the balance has been in a decent place, but if the balance is in a decent place but you are just slow, then it’s quite a simple thing that you need. 

“There’s not loads of problems. I guess it’s just one big problem, which is very costly in the world of Formula 1 because all you need is downforce, and that’s what we’re struggling with at the minute. That’s what we need to work on.” 

McLaren had a promising start to pre-season testing in Bahrain but suffered a setback in Bahrain when it encountered brake duct issues that hampered its running during the final three days of testing. 

Norris believes other teams have made better progress with their cars since the opening Barcelona test, while McLaren has taken “some steps back”. 

“What confused us initially was the fact that we were a little bit stronger in Barcelona and I think we just started off with a decent car,” he explained. 

“We just didn’t make a lot of progress because of the car which went on to the track very well,  we understood how to optimise the car very quickly. But then we couldn’t make much further progress from there. 

"That’s where other teams were able to take steps forwards and continue to find out more about the car and make bigger steps than we could. 

“There was more hope after Barcelona but that went away with time and when everyone else was able to find out more about the car and bring upgrades, we took some steps back.

While Norris is braced for a potentially ‘painful’ start to the season, he is confident there is light at the tunnel for the Woking-based outfit. 

“It’s not an easy thing to say exactly when or the time scale or anything, but I have good faith,” the Briton added. 

“We’ve not come out strong and we’ve struggled int eh first race, but there’s hope. There’s a good team back in MTC which is already working on a good plan to put things back together and try to understand everything, what we’ve missed and so on. 

“As soon as we figure it out, then there is [light at the end of the tunnel]. James [Key] is working hard already, he was already as soon as we realised where he stand compared to the other teams, putting that plan in place of recovering and trying to get back to a much higher position.”