Lando Norris: “The pace is not looking like it’s there at the minute”

McLaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris was not satisfied with the pace of his MCL36 after Friday’s practice sessions, finishing free practice one in nineteenth place and eleventh in free practice two. 

The British driver said that upgrades and alterations made to the car this weekend have had a positive impact at the demanding Marina Bay Street Circuit. 

“Tough day, just because of the temperature and the challenges of Singapore, but I think good that we’ve got a good understanding of the new bits on the car. 

“They’re performing as expected, which is in some ways similar to the way the car felt before the update, with just some small tweaks in the way that it works, and acts, which is what we want.”

Norris said that a top ten result in Saturday’s qualifying may be out of reach, though the team will push to “unlock” as much performance as possible ahead of the session.

“The pace is not looking like it’s there at the minute, we’ve got a lot to find if we want to get into Q3 tomorrow, more than normal, but we’ll give it a good shot, work hard overnight and see what we can unlock.” 

“We’re obviously quite slow and struggling quite a lot, especially tonight.” — Daniel Ricciardo

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was pleased to have made it through the Singapore heat on Friday, but felt that the team’s struggles with pace were clear. The Australian driver finished the first practice session in twelfth place and eighteenth in the second. 

“Singapore, it’s nice to be back. It’s hot of course but it didn’t feel too brutal today, and I felt like I got through the day OK. It’s been a while since we were here and we’ve got a bit of work to do tonight.

“We’re obviously quite slow and struggling quite a lot, especially tonight. So, we’ve got some work ahead of us. We’ll try to make the best of what we’ve got, but certainly it was a tricky afternoon session.”

Ricciardo said that there are still set-up changes to come, which should allow for improvements after a difficult day of running. 

“We’ll see what happens tomorrow, it’s hard to know now but I think we’ll definitely make changes on the car, try to find a bit more comfort and speed in it and go from there.”‘

Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd