Lando Norris said that McLaren’s rivals at Mercedes have the same sort of pace that they do this week, and suggested that Lewis Hamilton and George Russell might have been ‘sandbagging’ in Friday practice at Silverstone.
Norris topped both of the day’s practice sessions for the British Grand Prix, with his FP2 time of 1:26.549s ending up best of the day and 0.331s ahead of that of his team mate Oscar Piastri.
Max Verstappen was just seventh in second practice, while the Mercedes pair were strangely subdued. But Norris said he wasn’t fooled and that McLaren’s rivals were just keeping their powder dry in the gloomy, wet conditions.
“It was a good start to the weekend,” Norris told the media in the paddock after the end of the session. “It wasn’t the cleanest this morning, but we made some tweaks and got into a much nicer window, which is important around here.
“It was quite on the nose and quite sketchy in the high-speed so it was tricky but we’ve made some good progress,” he said, before adding: “I think we’re pretty tight and even to the Mercedes.”
Norris finished FP2 with a best lap that was 0.643s faster than that of Hamilton, with Russell a further tenth back, but Norris insisted that things were much closer than that in practice.
“They are probably just as quick as us, they just didn’t turn the engine up and do enough on the final runs,” he argued. “We are in a good place, but we have a bit more to find.”
Today’s practice ended slightly early when rain moved in over the Silverstone circuit. Norris hinted that he would prefer conditions to be dry and settled for the rest of the weekend.
“I wish the weather was a little bit better than it is at the minute,” he said. “But at least the rain held off for most of the day.
“I always enjoy both conditions, but I would prefer if it was one or the other,” he admitted. “Honestly at a home race you would probably prefer if it was just dry because we seem like we’re in a good place.
“I wouldn’t want to go too far away from that,” he said. “But it is Silverstone and England, so I am ready for everything, although my preference would probably be for it to stay dry.”
Piastri also kept a close eye on what their rivals had been up to on Friday.
“It’s interesting to see what other people are doing,” he said. “If we can maintain that gap for the rest of the weekend, that would be good, but I’m not sure we will.
“We had a good session, good day,” he continued. “The car felt pretty good. Just a few things to tidy up on my side, I would say. All in all, a decent Friday.
“The pace today in dry conditions might not necessarily be that important for the rest of the weekend,” he continued, adding that any rain this weekend would be “a big influence”.
“It’s going to be a tough one for all the teams trying to stay on top of the weather,” he said. “Trying to stay on top of British weather is hard in normal times, let alone on a race weekend!
“I think it’ll be an exciting weekend from that point of view,” he added.
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