After running Ferrari close for third in the 2021 championship, McLaren has set several steps back under the new 2022 regulations and only managed to score six points from the first two races.
But while McLaren failed to make it into Q3 in either race, in Melbourne Norris progressed to qualify fourth, with Ricciardo claiming seventh on the grid.
While Norris and Ricciardo were powerless to resist the quicker Mercedes cars during Sunday’s 58-lap race, the retirements for Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen allowed them to finish fifth and sixth respectively, bumping the team from eighth to fourth in the standings.
Ricciardo was encouraged by the “mega” result in front of his home fans, but Norris cautioned that it “might be as good as it gets for a while” as the Albert Park circuit appeared to suit the MCL36, which hadn’t been substantially changed compared the configuration that failed to deliver in the opening rounds.
“The car has been good from the FP1 and throughout the whole…
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