Lando Norris says predictions that McLaren will have a clear advantage this season are “short-sighted” and that he believes Ferrari will surprise with its pace at the Australian Grand Prix.
McLaren’s pre-season testing showing was impressive, with rival teams pointing to an extremely strong race run from Norris as proof the winners of last year’s constructors’ championship will be the team to beat in 2025. However, Norris says there were other signs during testing that the field will remain extremely close at the front, suggesting Ferrari was hiding more pace than its rivals.
“I know there’s a lot of expectation and it’s what everyone says,” Norris said. “It was just my one race run I did that kind of just made everyone believe this quite heavily. It was a good race run but it was also in the most perfect conditions. Oscar [Piastri] did a race run the next day that was a lot slower. Not because he drove worse but simply because the conditions on the final day were considerably slower.
“So I’m quite surprised so many people are so short-sighted, especially people you wouldn’t expect to be, making so many conclusions before you even start the season. But everyone just wants to play that game of looking like the underdog and playing it down.
“We just focus on ourselves and it’s nice that so many people are thinking about us and talking about us. Great publicity for us so I thank all of them. But it makes no difference: If I go out this weekend and do a bad job, who cares what people have said in the past?
“So I don’t believe it. I feel like we’re in a similar playing field to the top other three teams — I still think it’s us top four. But there are many things that other people didn’t see. Where other people looked extremely strong. Including Red Bull, including Mercedes, including Ferrari, and I know how much fuel and stuff Ferrari had for a lot of the testing, and you’d be surprised at how quick they’re going to be this weekend…
“People can talk what they want. I think for us we’ve kept to ourselves, we kept focused. We want to be quick, we expect to be up there fighting, but I definitely don’t think by the margin that everyone’s saying.”
Norris says he is keen to test himself against multiple different threats this season, after being self-critical about the way he approached a number of incidents with Max Verstappen last year.
“I’m just excited to have another crack at it and see what I can do and go up against any driver,” he said. “I don’t think I’m just going to be racing against Max this year. I think it’s going to be Charles [Leclerc] and Lewis [Hamilton].
“It’s going to be Oscar. It’s going to be both Red Bull drivers and Mercedes drivers too. So I look forward to all of the battles. And of course, the more wars that can be on track between others, the better for us. But I don’t expect that to happen too much.
“I think Lewis will still take a little time to settle in. That doesn’t mean he won’t be quick from the beginning, but there’s always things in the first few races, especially when you change teams and you’ve been with one team for such a long time, it takes a bit of time to get going. But I’m sure Lewis knows what those things are and he’ll iron them out as quickly as he can.”
