Norris is eager to "push the car a bit more" in Bahrain testing
Having ended up the opening day of the pre-season testing in Bahrain on top of the leaderboard, McLaren driver Lando Norris is eager to push his car "a bit more" on the remaining two days of pre-season testing.
McLaren driver Lando Norris ended up quickest on the opening day of F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain, narrowly beating George Russell, reigning champion Max Verstappen and Ferrari racer Charles Leclerc.
The first day of running was bizarrely halted by a power cut midway through the afternoon session, with the circuit-wide power outage having caused the session to be red-flagged for over an hour as the paddock and garages descended into darkness. Once power was restored, the session was extended by an extra hour to compensate for the lost running.
Having sat out the opening part of the day, Lando Norris quickly found his way to the sharp end of the field, posting a time of 1m30.430s. It was 0.157s quicker than what Mercedes’ George Russell managed.
“It’s nice to be back in the car! A big shout-out to the team for getting everything ready and prepared for today. It was a good, fun day on track, and we progressed through a lot of the tests that we wanted to do.
+I’m looking forward to pushing the car a bit more over the next couple of days," concluded Norris.
His team-mate Oscar Piastri complete a total of 66 laps on the opening day, ended up 17th quickest with the brand-new McLaren MCL39.
“So, the first day in the MCL39 is done. Thank you to everyone in the team for getting us ready for today. It was a productive morning for me, as we tried quite a few different things and it was really nice to be back on track.
"We still have many more areas to cover in the coming days to keep putting the car through its paces and to see how it works, but overall, a solid day.”
Commenting on the opening day, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella claimed that the Woking-based outfit has a long list to complete in the three-day pre-season testing in Bahrain.
“A productive first day for the MCL39 in official testing. The team and drivers did a good job to work through a busy run plan, and we end the day with much more information. Oscar focused largely on aero tests this morning and we then developed on our base set up with Lando this afternoon, making further changes.
"Conditions today were cooler than normal and also windy, which created some challenges around the track for everyone. Nevertheless, thanks to the efforts of the team at track and back in the UK, we have gathered a lot of important data we can build on tomorrow.”
