F1 | Norris: “I'm optimistic, but it will be tough to beat Red Bull”

On Wednesday, McLaren finally took the wraps off its MCL38, the car with which it will face the 2024 Formula 1 season. The color scheme was already known given that the team had unveiled the new colors last January, but curiosity centered around the shapes of the latest born in Woking because, after a growing 2023, it was understandable that the attention would shift to understanding what the technicians' choices would be to continue this path and attempt to challenge Red Bull.

The latest addition to Woking took to the track in the morning on a day affected by rain with Lando Norris at the wheel, which was then followed by the turn of Oscar Piastri, in his second year in the top series. The interesting aspect is that McLaren decided not to show much of the car: the photos of the presentation were disguised with Photoshop in some places, while only one image of the car on the track was released, among other things from the front and at a certain distance, making it impossible to see details.

This fueled even more attention towards the MCL38 and its features, an aspect that Lando Norris joked about during the press conference. “Because we can!”, the Englishman joked when asked why the team had darkened some points in the images. “It's a performance game and why would you want to give anything away? So… you've seen what the car looks like. But you'll see the rest in two weeks or so. So, be patient.”

Andrea Stella has already confirmed that the one taken to the track is essentially a first launch version, almost a base, because over the winter the engineers were unable to achieve all the objectives set on an aerodynamic level. During the season the MCL38 will therefore undergo an important development program, with the aim of making significant steps forward in those areas where the technicians believe they can dare more.

The hope is to be able to continue to grow and, perhaps, try to annoy Red Bull. Last year the Woking team managed to undermine the RB19 on several occasions, although it was only able to beat it once, in Bahrain, with a winning combo between Shootout and Sprint Race. However, that was the only occasion in which it managed to concretely worry the car from Milton Keynes, because except for rare stages such as Brazil, where the gap ultimately proved to be quite contained, in the other events there was a hegemony from part of Max Verstappen.

“I mean, if I had to say: are they beatable? They will say yes, I think we want to believe yes, because in certain moments we came very close. And at certain times… we beat them! So the question is: can we beat them in the span of a season? Because I think this will be the real challenge. And I think it will be very difficult to do so, given their performance.”

“So yes, I'm optimistic, but… Is it possible to beat them at certain times? I want to believe so,” explained Norris, underlining how the real challenge is not to beat Red Bull in a single Grand Prix, but to do so throughout of the entire season, which proved to be the real strong point of the RB19. Other teams have in fact managed to worry Red Bull in individual events more favorable to the characteristics of their respective cars, but they have never found the consistency to do so during all the stages of the world championship.

Another peculiar feature of last season was the particular trend right behind Red Bull, because Aston Martin, Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren often alternated as the second force in the field. According to Norris, potentially the grid will continue to compact, bringing the teams closer together.

“With any regulation, the further you get to the end of the cycle, the more compact it becomes [la griglia], that's what we usually see. So I believe that [l’anno scorso] it was one of the years with the most compact grille, from what I remember, in terms of regulations, in a long time. Even though he was dominated, probably more than ever, he was also the most contested from first to last for most of the year.”

Lando Norris, McLaren, speaks to the media

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

“So, maybe there wasn't a duel for the win, but if you also look at second or third place all the way to the back of the grid, the gap was probably less than half a second. So, as with every regulation, the situation will become more and more compact and perhaps at the beginning of the season the gaps will open up, but over the course of the year they will become smaller again. And we still have another year after this with the same regulation.”

“So I'm sure we have a couple of years of very close races ahead of us and when you don't do a perfect lap or don't get something right, sometimes in the past you could get away with it. Instead I think it will be possible to get away with less and less, and this requires less mistakes, more work, learning and perfection to achieve consistent results,” added the Briton.