China, Ferrari surprises Norris: “I bet I'd finish in 35 seconds”

What a redemption for Lando

Alternate plates for Lando Norris over the weekend in Shanghai, China. On the odd days he was sensational, on the 'even' day he made a mistake at the start which essentially ruined his Sprint. The balance, however, remains extremely positive. The McLaren driver signed pole position in prohibitive conditions and today in the Chinese GP he was the big surprise together with the MCL38 which returned to being – for the first time in 2024 – the second force on the track behind Red Bull.

Merit of the team led by Andrea Stella or more demerit of Ferrari? Norris leans more towards the second option: “I was surprised by the Ferrari's lack of pace – declared the English pilot – I had bet that I would finish 35 seconds behind them. I'm happy I was wrong.”

In the press conference, Norris went into more detail about a surprising (positive) Sunday for McLaren: “We haven't changed anything compared to yesterday – her words – simply what we thought might be weak points such as the long Curve 1-2 to the right did not turn out to be such. Maybe the new asphalt helped us, with the old one we would have struggled more, for now we have always been behind Red Bull and Ferrari and nothing made us think that today would have gone differently. We are obviously working to the best of our ability, but we haven't invented anything special. Nothing gave us any indication that we would have an extraordinary race, yesterday's Sprint wasn't sensational.”