Crash and boom—these two were the only sounds in the McLaren camp as the fans covered their faces with their hats after the team just crashed and burned during the season opener in Bahrain. While Oscar Piastri’s car had to retire, Lando Norris wasn’t far from it. He finished P17, the last position possible after three cars registered DNFs.

Lando’s car had a pneumatic problem, which made him pit a whopping six times. He had to pit once every ten laps after they identified the issue early on in the race. Hence, the race was bound to be a disaster. But the team kept the engine running on the track to collect data and resolve their woes as soon as possible. But despite all of this, Lando has identified a positive as he delivered a quip on the team’s performance.

Speaking after the race, PlanetF1 quoted the Briton as saying, “Good start, good launch, made up a few positions and then we had problems from Turn 1 basically–pneumatic problems and various other issues. That just brought out us of the race more and more. We had to pit every ten laps, and that was it.”

“On the second pit stop, he said I had to come back in. He said every 10 laps. I think the best thing is the mechanics did a lot of pit stop practices. That’s the biggest positive. I think the pace was ok-ish and we could have scored a point today at least so a shame we had the problems we did,” Lando concluded, praising the car for its pace and indicating better times for the team and the fans in the remaining season.

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There were expectations for Piastri and Norris to deliver in great capacity for the team. However, with a car such as the current MCL60, the expectation from the fans is to just finish the race as they sympathize with the drivers’ plights.

Lando Norris confesses the car is “not that competitive”

Before the Bahrain weekend, rumors of a struggling McLaren car were making the rounds. The rumors for further solidified during the preseason testing. Knowing the car’s ability, Norris wasn’t very hopeful of winning but expected to bag points in the opening round.

As quoted by Autosport, he said, “But there’s no reason why they should be downbeat. The main thing is we should have scored points, that was our objective today, with a car we know is not that competitive. The team knows that. And if we fix the issue, we should be fine,” giving a glimmer of hope for less shame for the fans.

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