Lando Norris believes that the upgrades that McLaren brought are working, but the British outfit managed to obtain a good result in qualifying also thanks to the track’s layout.
McLaren managed to be faster than it was in Bahrain and Jeddah, but Norris remains realistic. He believes that even with these updates, nothing would’ve changed in the pecking order in the first two races.
“We’ve improved in a couple of small areas and maximized ourselves, but it’s just a slightly different circuit layout that potentially played in our favor. Nothing more than that.
“I’m sure if we went back to Saudi Arabia we’re not going to really do any differently to what we did. It’s a different track layout, different tarmac, just different weekend.”
“It’s clear from today that we’ve been a little bit ahead of our main competitors.”
Team principal Andrea Stella also admitted that the MCL38 is still showing its weaknesses in Melbourne. For example, a less efficient DRS system and lack of speed in the fast corners.
“When we look carefully at the overlays with some other cars, we actually recognize the same strengths and weaknesses that we have observed in the first two races,” said Stella.
“In relatively long corners, like corner three, or the penultimate and the last corner, we lost time, like we were losing time in Saudi in the similar long corners. Likewise, we lose a bit of time in DRS straights.
“But here the DRS straights are slightly shorter than they are in Saudi, so the track characteristics mean that the time we spend in these weak areas is shorter here, and therefore we are more competitive.
“There are a few more high-speed corners than the first two circuits, for sure. I think it is completely track layout dependent.”