Formula 1 drivers are all very selfish beings, aren’t they? And it’s kind of justified when you look at the history of the sport. There have been so many talented and even championship-caliber drivers who never even got a chance to fight for the title at all. What a shame it is. Just look at Lando Norris. He was already employed with McLaren till the end of 2025, and yet he still signed a multi-year deal with the team at the end of January, of which we don’t even know the expiration date. On the contrary, he was calling the MCL60 garbage just a year ago after the season opener in Bahrain. In the third episode of the new season 6 of ‘Drive To Survive’, Norris claims that he needed to be in a better car.

However, McLaren turned the 2023 season on its head with their upgrade package in Austria. A team that was struggling to make it to Q2 and Q3 on a Saturday suddenly started fighting for podium positions on a Sunday. Lando Norris managed to score 6 P2 race finishes from Austria to the end of the season. Oscar Piastri even managed to secure a Sprint Race win in Qatar. All of a sudden, McLaren looked like the team to be on. But that’s not how Norris saw it in the early part of last season.

Lando Norris was tempted to take up Christian Horner’s Red Bull offer in 2023

While the Papaya team was struggling at the start of the season, Norris wouldn’t have imagined that it would turn out to be his best season in Formula 1, scoring a total of 205 points. The team had a challenging start, failing to meet development targets, and Norris himself only managed three-point finishes in the first eight races. His worst nightmare was the season opener in Bahrain where he finished 2 laps down on the leader. After the race, he candidly commented that he “might just walk into Red Bull and steal their car.”

In the third episode of Drive To Survive season 6, Lando Norris was seen talking in a race debrief after Bahrain, “I do one little thing, I under rotate. Fu*king corner, giving up. As soon as I do one thing wrong, it’s just garbage,“ the Brit explained to his team. Later in the episode, Christian Horner expressed his interest in poaching Norris away from McLaren, saying, “I think Lando is one of the most talented drivers on the grid… We’d certainly be interested in him. I think he’d fit in our environment.”

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Even the 24-year-old at one point seemed too frustrated with the performance of McLaren hinting that he might go to Red Bull Racing. He said, “Every driver has conversations with as many people as they can to give themselves options. I should be in a better car, but I’m not… It’s rare you get one driver that sticks with the same team their whole career.”

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However, all that is in the past, as he’s fully committed to McLaren for an unknown number of years now. But how will McLaren fare against Red Bull in 2024?

Norris believes they’re a long way behind Red Bull after pre-season testing

The 2024 season kicked off with the pre-season testing and all eyes were on McLaren, as they were the closest team to Red Bull by the end of 2023. However, despite having a decent test with consistent times during the three-day testing period, Norris feels McLaren is still lagging behind its primary competitors.

He noted that while McLaren’s car concept from the previous season has positioned them well for the upcoming campaign; he believes they still have a significant gap to close with the front runners. “I think we’ve definitely taken some steps in the right direction,” Norris stated during media interactions. “But I think we’re still quite a long way behind Red Bull and a long way behind Ferrari.”

Can McLaren keep up their upward trajectory and finally fight for race wins in 2024? What are your predictions?