Revving up for the start of the campaign, all eyes were on McLaren as they geared up for a thrilling race. But alas, disappointment loomed as both drivers hit bumps in the road, with Lando Norris having to pit six times due to a pneumatic issue and forcing debutant Oscar Piastri to retire. And that wasn’t the end of their struggles—the MCL60 lacked speed, leaving rising star Oscar Piastri out of qualifying in Q1 and Norris barely making it to Q2 on Saturday.

All of this played right into the speculations of the fans and experts, who had made their judgments by the end of the preseason testing a week before the race. There were surprises for them in terms of how the car had gotten way worse than they had predicted. So when asked when he learned about the dire state of the car, Lando remarked, “three months ago,” and he knew it would be a challenging start for the team, as reported by the Mirror.

Highlighting the issues with the MCL60, an optimist for the next 22 races, Norris said as per the Mirror, “I think it’s a mixture of two things – one is the general balance and two is overall downforce. Overall downforce kind of fixes, let’s say 90% of the problems. But to take that final step, there are other things on top of it. I don’t know the specifics of numbers and so on and where we are going to be. I think that’s the point. But we have similar limitations to what we had last year.”

Two Teams Expected to Be Lando Norris’ Lifeboat to Get Away From McLaren’s Sinking Ship

All of this no longer makes the fans happy. With the troubles from the last year still persisting, it’d be hard, even for the hardcore group of fans, to come aboard.

Lando Norris reveals a behemoth target for McLaren

After years as a backmarker, McLaren moved to the midfield. However, it sees itself slipping back to the old position as Alpine and Alfa Romeo seem to have joined the battle and appear to have a thick edge over the papaya.

Nevertheless, Lando’s optimism is appreciated as he reveals the target despite a wreckful start to the year. He revealed, “We want to end as a top four team. I think that will give us a big boost of confidence going into ’24 when we will have part of the car set up in the new wind tunnel.”

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There’s a need for Lando to be heavily optimistic given the number of years left on his contract. While there might not be a championship in sight for him, he must perform regardless of the circumstances, to survive the sport.