McLaren’s Lando Norris made an interesting comparison between himself and Lewis Hamilton over their time spent at the team.  The Brit highlighted the differences in the team the back when Hamilton joined and the McLaren of today. Norris believes Hamilton had a big advantage with a Championship winning car when he debuted in F1.

The 20-year-old referenced the reigning World Champion when talking about the prospects of winning a Championship with McLaren.

Lando Norris on Lewis Hamilton

In Many ways, Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris share the same career trajectories in Formula 1. Two young British drivers, joining one of the most historical teams in the sport to kickstart their F1 careers. However, there’s a big difference between the McLaren of 2007 and 2020.

Back in 2007, McLaren had a race-winning machine that was more than capable of winning Championships. Hamilton had access to one of the best cars on the grid at the time during his debut season. In fact, the 6 times World Champion hasn’t been in a non-competitive car for the entirety of his F1 career. Hamilton simply doesn’t know what it’s like to tough it out in the midfield over a few points.

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Fast forward to today and McLaren isn’t the same dominant team that it was many years ago. Slowly but surely, they’re breaking out of the midfield but there’s a long way to go. According to Norris, that’s an important factor to consider when talking about winning Championships with McLaren in 2020.

Speaking to Natalie Pinkham on the podcast In The Pink, Norris said:

“Situation’s obviously very different, there’s always the comparison of Lewis joining McLaren when he was young and me joining McLaren when I was young”

“Of course, the situation when Lewis was in McLaren and in F1 is completely different”

“He’s in a Championship winning car from day 1, you could do a lot more testing back then, then you can in F1 now”

“When he arrived for his first race, he would have done a countless amount of test days, he would have been a lot more prepared than even I was after doing all the FP1’s and everything”

“He was in a car that was competitive enough to win the Championship in his first year”

With McLaren switching to Mercedes power next season, the Woking outfit may very well return to its winning ways in the foreseeable future.