In Barcelona, McLaren were being talked up as the next big thing on the grid. Two weeks later in Bahrain the script had changed, the British manufacturer labelled strugglers – with their brakes and their pace – ahead of the opening race of the season.
Such are the vagaries of Formula 1 and, like much of the rest of the grid, it only adds to the sense of unknown going into tomorrow’s qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
For McLaren, that has been particularly exacerbated by the lack of running time as well as Daniel Ricciardo missing out on the last test because of Covid.
And sitting outside the team’s hospitality suite on a freakishly cold Bahrain night on Thursday, Lando Norris hasn’t a clue how he might fare this weekend.
“I think if you’d asked me in Barcelona, I’d maybe have been a bit more hopeful,” he said. “After the Bahrain test, that’s gone down a little bit. At some tracks, we’re going to be weaker but the flip side is some tracks we’ll be stronger and we’ll have that chance of competing for a higher spot or maybe a race win.”
For now, Norris estimates the team are the fourth fastest behind Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes with what he calls “a decent car not up with the best just yet”.
However Bahrain plays out – and it could be a potentially tough race for McLaren – Norris is confident it is not necessarily an indicator and that a first win he is searching for in his fourth season lies on the horizon.
“I’m done the podiums, bored of them,” he said on the eve of the season. “Podiums are still lovely and, as a driver and life ambition and goal, a win is always on the cards.”
Norris has come mightily close before. In Russia, a country F1 is boycotting this season, last year he was on course for that inaugural win only for the wrong call to not pit for tyres as rain emerged late on. As Lewis Hamilton pitted and won, Norris slid off the track and dropped down to seventh.
“That one took a while to get over because it was so close and people bring it up all the time!” he said. “But these are the tough lessons you’ve got to take on the chin and learn from. But those things you learn from could be the things that end up getting you the win in the future.”
It was doubly hard to take with team-mate Ricciardo having won the preceding race at Monza with Norris having dominated practice and qualifying only to be blocked at the start of the sprint race.
“It’s frustrating it wasn’t me,” he said of being pipped to McLaren’s first win since 2012, “as I’ve been here longer than he has… and he’s got a lot more race wins than I have.”
Despite missing out, Norris is still seen as the driver to get one of the sport’s most successful teams back to their glory days, having signed a new long-term deal recently.
“That’s the aim,” he said. “That’s what I would love more than anything to be the guy or at least being a big part of bringing McLaren from where they were three or four years ago at the very bottom all the way back to the very top. And to be there that whole journey, I think that’s more special than hopping to another team and winning a race all of a sudden.”
There is the potential, in time, for the championship battle to be one pitting him against George Russell, his long-time rival in the junior ranks.
“I’d love it if we could battle George and Mercedes for championships and wins,” he said. “I look forward to that time.”
For now in Bahrain, points rather than prizes is the goal.
