After winning the 2021 Italian Grand Prix – where Norris was second behind then team-mate Daniel Ricciardo – and finishing fourth in the constructors’ championship that year after being third in 2020 following considerable rebuilding effort, McLaren slipped back to fifth in 2022.
Its slide initially continued into 2023, where Norris and new team-mate Oscar Piastri struggled to get the MCL60 out of Q1 early on, before a much-vaunted upgrade programme delivered impressive gains that catapulted McLaren up the order.
