If one were to only look at the rankings of the first session, the dry one, McLaren would not go beyond the eighth place obtained by Oscar Piastri, one second from the top achieved by Max Verstappen. However, behind that eighth and tenth place there are considerations to be made, starting with the fact that both drivers from the Woking team were unable to complete their best lap at the ideal time.
The two McLaren drivers were in fact among the first to take to the track with the softer compound, about half an hour before the end of the session, in order to have the first references on the soft before concentrating on the long-distance simulations. However, just as I was doing their fastest lap the red flag came out for Logan Sargeant's accident, forcing the two riders of the British team to abort the lap.
At that point, in order not to waste another set of tyres, both Norris and Piastri were forced to return to the track with the same set of soft compound tires used previously, which at that point had already given peak performance on the flying lap. Although it was only the opening session of the weekend, the Suzuka track is generally very aggressive on the tyres, so it is not particularly easy to make the tires survive for long over multiple attempts.
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Precisely for this reason, both drivers have greater confidence in the potential of the car compared to what the ranking says, seeing themselves in battle with the Astons and Mercedes: “I think our pace is better than what it seems and what the ranking says, also because my best lap was interrupted when the red flag came out,” explained Norris at the end of the day.
“By the second lap the tires had already suffered a drop in performance. We are in a good position, very close to Aston and Mercedes, which is what we expected. Red Bull is too far ahead for the moment. Let's see what we can do tomorrow, but for the moment it went as we expected and in line with the rest of the season.”
The Briton and his teammate also tried different aerodynamic configurations, in order to understand the right level of downforce for this track. On the one hand we are looking for higher top speeds on the extensions, but on the other we also want to find the right compromise in order not to excessively sacrifice tire management. Although it is difficult to understand the level in terms of engine maps in the first free practice session, there was a difference of 3/4 km/h between the two pilots, probably considered too small to make one lean towards using the unloaded wing.
“We had different load levels with Oscar, I tried to run more unloaded, but it didn't seem like such a competitive alternative as the more loaded version. I think tomorrow morning will be good, it's just a matter of finding that feeling before qualifying. The car is good, but Ferrari has made a good step forward and is probably ahead of us, but the car is behaving as we expected. We struggle a bit in certain points, we have to limit how much we lose in certain sections. If we can do that, I think we can do well.”
“It's clear that we lack a bit of downforce and a better balanced car in slow corners. You can try to go around it, but it's a compromise and it doesn't always make sense”, added the McLaren driver, highlighting the weak points already seen in the past, including the difficulties in slow sections such as the hairpin after the two Degners .
His teammate, Oscar Piastri, is also on the same wavelength, but he still has confidence ahead of the rest of the weekend.
“I think we are at a good point and in good shape. It's a bit difficult to notice, also because in FP1 the red flag came out at exactly the worst moment for us. So it's a little difficult to know exactly where we are, but we are satisfied.”
“I think we have a competitive car. It will be interesting to see if we can replicate the pace and performance we had in Australia. Obviously we did well at Suzuka last year and it was a good track, but I feel that others have made some steps forward, so we'll see what we can do, but we're reasonably optimistic that we can be close to the leaders”, added Piastri . Already on Thursday the Australian himself had underlined how, although the Japanese one was a good track on paper for the MCL38, there was also the suspicion that Ferrari had made significant steps forward.
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