Lando Norris feels like he had a strong qualifying session at the British Grand Prix — but come race day, McLaren might face a challenge.
According to Norris, the Red Bull of Max Verstappen has so much pace on the straights that McLaren will struggle to keep up, even with DRS.
McLaren have one weakness in British GP, says Lando Norris
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
The dust has settled on qualifying for the 2025 British Grand Prix, and come Sunday afternoon, Max Verstappen will be the driver leading the field to the first corner when the five lights turn out.
Beside and behind the Red Bull driver, though, are the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris — the two drivers duking it out for top honors in the championship standings.
The MCL39s have been strong all year long, but they haven’t been infallible, and according to Norris, some of those weaknesses will be particularly clear tomorrow afternoon.
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Speaking to media during the post-qualifying press conference, Norris admitted that “we probably seem a little bit more in the middle of both the Red Bull and the Ferrari” in terms of pace.
“But I think it can easily make a lot of opportunity come everyone’s way tomorrow. So probably expecting a tough but an exciting race.”
Norris pointed out that there are a handful of different strategies that teams could employ to snatch track position, and the threat of rain will keep things interesting. But McLaren will need to be smart to overtake Verstappen, because the RB21 has an impressive straight-line speed advantage.
“To be honest, at the minute, it’s like our DRS speed probably just about matches Max’s speed,” Norris admitted.
“I think it’ll be tough, because we’ll probably catch in the high speed. We just won’t really close much when you open the DRS.
“I think it can be tough, but there’s also probably more opportunities than a normal race. Between everyone, we’re fast and slow in different places.
“I think you look at the Red Bull Ring, and you say, ‘the Red Bull Ring is high speed,’ but comparing [it] to Silverstone, it’s quite medium speed. Here is definitely high speed, and it’s probably highlighted a few more of our weaknesses.
“We’ve performed very well in the slower- and medium-speed tracks, some of the higher speed we’re not bad, but we always seem to lose out to Max and the Red Bull.
“Clearly things to work on, but I think we go into the race tomorrow, there’s still plenty of opportunity for us.”
That being said, Norris seemed content with his qualifying session. The Briton has been tough on himself when he’s qualified anywhere but pole position in 2025, but he nevertheless branded his session as “reasonably smooth.”
“I mean, as smooth as I could probably ask for,” he added.
“Most of my laps were all pretty decent; just Q1 was the only little nervous one, just with how close it was from front to last, really. Otherwise, I think, all good. Most laps always improved and found good lap time.
“Probably my final one, would have hoped to find just a little bit more. Just didn’t quite get the grip out of it in some corners, and the right balance, but I’m still happy with third.”
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