McLaren are “not happy” with the state of their car ahead of the Formula One season starting, Lando Norris has admitted.
An underwhelming few days of testing have the British marque looking at a tough Bahrain Grand Prix due to downforce and balance issues.
Norris, 23, is now the senior driver at McLaren but made clear his frustrations with having to wait for an upgrade package that he believes the team should have prepared for this weekend.
The fourth race of the season, in Baku, is earmarked for the team’s first set of improvements to this year’s car.
“I never want to say too many things until those times arrive, that’s one thing I know about Formula One,” he is quoted by The Race as saying.
“But at the same time the season will start now, it’s as simple as that. As much as we want to believe it maybe starts later, it’s starting now and we’re behind where we should want to be.
“What we’re going to have in Baku should be what we started the season with. If you want to be a top team, we should have started the season with those kinds of parts which are coming.
“Until then, we’ll just do the best we can to make the most of what we have now. It’s the same as every other team and what their objectives are. So I think no matter where we are, if we are 10th, if we’re 15th, whatever, we remain optimistic that we can make progress later on in the season.”
