Lando Norris, McLaren, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, 2022

Norris expects Interlagos ‘won’t suit McLaren at all’

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In the round-up: Lando Norris expects that the Interlagos circuit will not suit McLaren’s car for this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix

In brief

Norris expects Interlagos ‘won’t suit McLaren at all’

Lando Norris expects that the Interlagos circuit will not suit McLaren’s car for this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

McLaren are locked in a close battle with Alpine over fourth place in the constructors’ championship, with Alpine only seven points ahead with two rounds remaining. Despite out-scoring Alpine in four of the last five races, Norris does not expect Brazil to be a strong race for the team.

“I wouldn’t say Brazil is going to suit us at all with the balance of the car and our struggles,” said Norris.

“I think even the last few races we’ve not been the quickest car or quick enough – we’ve just done a better job with the strategy and with reliability to at least get to the chequered flag.”

Red Bull targetting second for Perez

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says the world champions target for the end of the season is to secure second place in the drivers’ championship for Sergio Perez.

The team have already secured both world titles with Max Verstappen successfully defending his drivers’ championship and Red Bull winning their first constructors’ championship since 2013. Perez is five points ahead of Charles Leclerc in second after Ferrari endured a difficult weekend in Mexico off the pace of Red Bull and Mercedes.

“Ferrari looked like they were a little bit handicapped, so I’m not sure we saw their real pace, but I’m sure they’ll be back,” said Horner.

“It was important for Checo to score strong points. It puts him back into second in the championship, and that’s our target – for him to finish in that position by the end of Abu Dhabi.”

Cost cap should bring field closer together – Tost

AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost believes F1’s budget cap will bring its grid closer together over time.

The sport introduced a budget cap last season, limiting how much money teams could spend in a variety of areas. Although the top three teams have dominated the 2022 season, Tost is confident the midfield will catch up as the years go by.

“The new regulation brought the cars closer together, especially in the midfield,” he said.

“I think that the gap to the three top teams could also be closed in the next years when the cost cap is coming closer, or will help to bring the teams closer together because the top teams can’t spend any more so much money.”

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Comment of the day

This weekend’s Caption Competition winner is Derek Edwards!:

Even with the latest upgrades on the car, the Alfa drivers still felt they were carrying some dead weight.
Derek Edwards

Thanks to everyone who came up with caption idea this week and a special mention to Red Andy, Sham and Pat Ruadh who all came up with particularly good captions.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Alonsowdc, Paul and Claidheamh!

On this day in motorsport

  • On this day in 1992 the mighty Williams-Renault FW14B took its final pole position at Adelaide in Nigel Mansell’s hands

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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10 comments on “Norris expects Interlagos ‘won’t suit McLaren at all’”

  1. $500m on something that i just don’t see having a long term future is a ridiculous waste of money considering how it could do with been invested elsewhere to actually improve the sport for fans.

    This whole Las Vegas GP is just a Liberty vanity project. It looks like a dreadful track that offers nothing of any interest, Ticket prices are beyond what your average F1 can could ever hope to afford, It’s TV timeslot is utterly ridiculous regardless of what timezone your in & the entire thing is nothing more than American razzmatazz that has zero to do with the sport or the racing.

    But long straights that will all no doubt be very long DRS zones to give them a lot of highway passing so they can try and claim that 100 passes in the stat book mean it was the greatest race in the history of any category that has ever existed.

    And even taking DRS out of the discussion, These boringly long straights are just even more boring now that every new track has to have a few of them. It was an interesting novelty when the circuit in Shanghai came out with such a long straight but it’s a feature that has long lost it’s novelty now that it’s something every new track has.

    Like other areas I think the calender is just quantity over quality now.

    1. I really hate long straights as a regular feature of tracks. They should at least not put DRS zones on them.

    2. COTD ! I couldn’t agree more.

    3. Looking at the spectacle last weekend i noticed how bad those roads are slippery as hell and the reverse of smooth. Red Bull a note put bling bling on with RGB leds if it’s evening it was strange to see Mercedes with RGD leds but Red Bull total dark.

      The straights looks like Baku only with 2 of them DRS will be less of a issue with these cars if they are in slink mode. But exploding cars (engines) could be a thing next year.

    4. Exactly and then at the end of the long straight they put a 90 degree turn *yawn*.

    5. Not ridiculous in European, Asian, & Oceanic time zones, the same as with the Japanese, & Australian GPs, etc.

  2. Sainz is being trounced but apparently he’d rather be 5th ahead of his team mate in one grand prix, because this means he is over his team mate…

  3. McLaren should be knocking on the door of podiums every race now, with a chance of victory if Verstappen gets unlucky. Anything else is a disgrace.

    1. A disgrace to be behind Mercedes and Ferrari?

      Righto.

  4. So bottom line is that McLaren will do well this weekend.

Comments are closed.