Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo are pleased with the first day in the new McLaren F1 car which did the first kilometers yesterday at Silverstone, the day after the video presentation of the new car in Woking.
McLaren is the first team to introduce a new F1 car for 2021 called the MCL35M which is the first McLaren car with a Mercedes engine since 2014, and the car has done its first 100 kilometers on wet Silverstone.
“It was nice to get back in the race car, but also to sit in the car where everyone was working so hard to put it together so hats down to all the people in the team,” Norris told Sky Sports F1.
“The conditions were tough to get the initial feel for the car, but it was still wonderful to get back in the race car, push it to the limit, a little oversteer, a little understeer, that’s what I like.”
“This was the first day and it’s important to start the season in the right way. Now I can have a bigger impact and start giving my feedback to make this car as fast as possible.”
“It’s still early and we’ll need a lot more laps, but I already have comments on the comfort in the car and its driving characteristics. I have no complains, but it’s still early days.”
“It will be close and I’m sure everyone is working as hard as they can and trying to find small improvements. We hope we can be a little better than them.”
For Ricciardo, these were the first laps in a McLaren F1 car, and the Australian says that so far everything has gone smoothly.
“Everything went very smoothly, we did what we planned,” Ricciardo said.
“We couldn’t expect more. Everything helps to get me used to the team as soon as possible.”
“The goal is not to panic at the start of the race in Bahrain.”
“We went through a few scenarios that we could experience on the race weekend. We don’t have the right atmosphere, but we tried to create it and add a little pressure on ourselves.”
