Lando Norris: Top Teams 'just as quick' as McLaren

Lando Norris continues to shut down the notion that McLaren's car is dominant, citing the inability to catch Ferrari's Charles Leclerc for a podium spot as proof.

Norris secured an impressive P4 finish, especially considering he crashed out of Q3 and started P10.

McLaren has managed to win four out of the first five races, though the margin of victory is not as large as many expected heading into the season.

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The McLaren in clean air race trim is remarkably strong, although extracting qualifying laps from the car can be challenging.

Norris has consistently stated throughout much of the preseason and early in this season that the McLaren car is not particularly dominant.

A hard fought race by Lando to finish just shy of a podium in tough conditions 💪🥵#McLaren pic.twitter.com/1nXCXgJxBC
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) April 21, 2025

"I don't know why people are so surprised, they're just as quick in most sessions, they're just as quick as us in the race," Norris told Sky Sports after the race.

"Just because we're quick in practice, people just keep coming up with all this crap. I mean, they can keep saying what they want."

"We don't believe we're much ahead, as showed. I think probably Max was the quickest out there today if he didn't have that five-second penalty, so we have work to do."

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Norris suggests that the narrative surrounding McLaren's powerful car is largely driven by its impressive lap times during Free Practice.

The team revs the car up initially but struggles to extract significant additional speed over the weekend, resulting in stagnation and enabling competitors to close the gap.

"People keep saying that we're the best, we're the quickest, blah, blah, blah, but it's just because we show a bit more pace in practice and then we don't have anything left when it gets to quali, but that's our way of doing things," he said.

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"That's how we feel, we optimize things. If we didn't do it that way, we'd be even further back, so no, I'm happy with the work we're doing. People just need to recalibrate that we're not ... we have a great car and probably the quickest on average for sure, but clearly not enough."

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