Lando Norris is concerned that McLaren’s biggest problems in Las Vegas are all issues he’s “not very good at”.
He posted the second-quickest time of Thursday’s opening day of practice around a relatively cold Las Vegas Strip Circuit, almost matching Lewis Hamilton’s benchmark lap. But despite being so close to the top of the times, Norris only described his day as “so-so”.
“I think the low fuel stuff’s been okay,” he told the official F1 channel. “[On] high fuel I was shocking.
“There’s plenty of things to look into. These kinds of combinations of things, and what we struggled with the front graining and stuff, I’m just not very good at it, so it was a bit of a struggle for me.
“But there’s a good amount of time to work on it. So there’s two halves, really: Good low fuel and difficult high fuel.”
The cool conditions, with ambient temperatures barely about 10C, and the lack of rubber on the circuit left drivers fighting with very low grip. Norris predicted the track conditions “probably won’t” improve over the remainder of the weekend.
“It’s just very difficult,” he continued. “Super-low grip. I feel like I could drive a road car quicker than we drive by the minute.”
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Norris admits it will be difficult for him to find a way to improve his race pace in the practice time still available.
“If I knew it, I’d probably do it,” he said. “But even if I know it, it’s still not an easy thing for me to go and do, because it’s a struggle for me always.
“I’ll look into it and see what I can work on. At least I can focus more on the high fuel than the low fuel for now, but we’ll see in qualifying. Qualifying well and qualifying at the front will always help everything else. So plenty of things to look into tonight.”
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2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix
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