Lando Norris believes McLaren's ability to have two cars fighting
at the head of the Formula 1 field could make the difference in a
potential title fight with Red Bull. The MCL38 received its first
big upgrade package in Miami, with Norris taking a maiden career
win as he finished second at Imola, with team-mate Oscar Piastri
suffering damage in Miami before taking fifth last time out at
Imola. However, Piastri and Norris had qualified within a tenth of
Verstappen for the first European race of the season, before the
former received a grid penalty that dropped him back into traffic
he was unable to clear - but the underlying pace of the McLaren is
strong. At Imola, Verstappen's team-mate Sergio Perez was
eliminated in Q2, starting 11th and only finishing in eighth place
after an off, with Norris highlighting the fact that he felt having
two cars consistently fighting at the head of the field would prove
vital. "I think we're probably the team along with Ferrari where
we have two cars up there performing in every single session, every
single qualifying and race," Norris told media including
RacingNews365. "If you look at a lot of the grid, they don't really
have that - you have one guy who has put in a mega lap and has a
good race and then the other one not so much. "One of our strings
is that we've always had two cars up there and we can fight well
along with Ferrari at the minute. "So if we keep doing that, then
yeah, for sure we can stay in it." Points between team-mates in
2024 As the table below shows, Perez actually has the third-highest
conversion rate on the grid in terms of matching his team-mates
points at 66.45%, with Piastri only hauling 52.47% of Norris's
points thus far. Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz are
the most closely matched at 82.30%, with Sainz missing a race in
Saudi Arabia. Norris is 60 points behind Verstappen in the Drivers'
standings and also cooled talk of challenging for the title. "I
mean, I am about 60 points behind Max, and there is a long, long
way to go," he added. "So I am definitely not thinking about it,
and it doesn't change anything, we've not thought about it over the
last four weeks. "You just concentrate on getting a good result and
things just play out for themselves, but we have definitely put
ourselves in [the title fight]. "We lost a lot over the first
couple of weekends, so that hurt us, but its still kind of a third
of the way [through the season], so there are plenty of
opportunities for us. "We know some things are coming in the
future, and if things turn around, then we can easily start to come
back at some of the teams."
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