Lando Norris said the 2025 car felt the same as the 2024 one in a positive way but did highlight an issue with a rear he had noticed during the pre-season test.

Norris had completed just one session before he picked up the mic but was already largely positive about what he had experienced.

Lando Norris gives first verdict of MCL39

McLaren have regularly been poor starters to the season, meaning there is a lot of pressure on the defending Constructors’ champions to hit the ground running in 2025 if they want to retain their crown.

But Norris has indicated that McLaren are exactly where they need to be by saying the car felt like last year’s title winner.

“It feels similar, which is a good start,” he told media including PlanetF1.com in Bahrain. “That’s where we wanted to start.
“Nothing’s been majorly addressed. We’ve just tried to make the car quick all around and add more load, a simple way of looking at it honestly.

“We still want to try and focus on some areas more than others. We’ve struggled a bit more with the rear than we would have liked over yesterday and today. But it’s still early days.

“We’re not looking at absolute, outright performance and if we went into qualifying now, I’m sure we would change some things, but a lot of today and yesterday has been just ticking the boxes.”

Having ticked off those boxes, Norris stated he was looking forward to the “fun bit” in the afternoon session and Friday morning where he can put the MCL39 through its paces. He did however reiterate that the rear was an area that needed improving.

“The fun bit will be this afternoon and tomorrow morning but I think if we want to improve anything at the minute, it’s still the rear of the car,” the 25-year-old said. “The more you can improve the rear, the more everything just gets better.

“But the rest of it feels correct, and it feels like it’s in the same ballpark, and that’s what we want.

“I don’t think we’re expecting to be a big step ahead of anyone. We’re expecting to be tied alongside the guys to my right [Max Verstappen of Red Bull and Charles Leclerc of Ferrari], but if we’re just there fighting from the beginning, that’s our target, considering how the last few years have been.

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“If we can just be there fighting from the off then we’ll be happy.”

Norris also alluded to the fact that too much attention can be paid to the timesheets, remarking that Ferrari were a second ahead but said McLaren were “doing our own thing.”

“It’s just nice to be back in the car,” he said. “Just driving again is always what we love to do, right? So it’s nice.

“Pace of the car? It’s just difficult to tell at the minute. We’re one second off Ferrari, if you look at just the timesheets, what everyone loves to do.

“So we’re just doing our own thing, learning about the cars. Plenty of things we still need to learn about and test.”

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