McLaren: Qualified well but Ferrari “will not be reached” in the race

McLaren was one of the teams hoping for rain today to boost Lando Norris’ Sprint Position, and get a positive result in Qualifying, but instead it didn’t rain and the two papaya cars qualified fourth and fifth. for tomorrow’s Grand Prix; Norris and Piastri increased their power, and defeated the two Ferrari who once again showed more than one difficulty in the flying lap. All sides are very satisfied with today, despite missing a place in Turn 1 of the Sprint Race when Lando Norris tried to resist the attack of Lewis Hamilton by making a mistake and ending a great chance to get the podium and possibly fight his teammate for second. space; there today confirmed the trend of the McLaren MCL38, which will be able to use the new tires very well, except losing ground especially compared to the Ferrari with a heavy fuel load in the slower corners which requires a significant steering angle like those in the second and third sectors in Shanghai. Also The cause of damage will play an important roleWith both drivers struggling to keep up with the cars in front in today’s final laps, the change in layout is bound to help Norris and Piastri in that sense as well.

Norris: “A good day today, but it will be difficult to get behind Ferrari tomorrow”

Lando Norris said he was satisfied with the day, especially with the pace shown by McLaren: “A good day for us with speed, we keep a little gap to Ferrari but maybe they will pass us tomorrow, however I think we are in a good position, our battle will be with Astons and maybe with Mercedes. at some point.” The morning’s Sprint race did not go well for Norris, who started in first place and finished sixth also due to problems with Alonso’s car: “Even with what happened this morning our pace was not bad, we are close to Mercedes and Aston Martin, except Red Bull is a mile ahead and Ferrari is another good place ahead. for us, but with everyone else we are there or close and it should be a good race”. Even Piastri, who today reduced the damage to his colleague after a small performance, confirmed the expectations: “We’ll wait to see how our pace is tomorrow, but it’s definitely a good start, we have fast cars behind us (Ferrari), so let’s see what we can do.”

Despite starting on the second row, the Englishman’s opinion is that Ferrari will be too fast for McLaren tomorrow: “I don’t expect anything surprising, we said before the weekend that we would work hard, we worked better than expected on the flying lap but with a lot of fuel everything we expected happened, and that’s why we worked hard.” The first sector was very good for the papaya duo on the morning of the Sprint, when The MCL38 showed typical faults in slower corners requiring more steering angle such as Turn 6, Turn 9 and Turn 11-12, very important especially for defending and attacking; The Woking single seater proved to be particularly competitive in the first sequence of corners and in the fast turn eight of the main sector, curves that are best suited to the MCL38. On the other hand, McLaren showed a good straight line competition, which is not as big a problem as last year due to the development of 2023 and made during the winter.

If Stella is satisfied with the drivers’ qualification, the MCL38 will have to improve in the race

Andrea Stella is satisfied with the behavior of the car in Qualifying: “Qualifying in Shanghai proved that Our car competes with new tires, in the right trims. P4 and P5 are good positions to start tomorrow’s race, hoping to get important points.” Configuration changes between Sprint and Qualifying are aimed at improving the car in the race: “At the same time, in the Sprint we have seen that the challenge becomes more difficult in the race space. We need to improve this aspect and we have already made some changes to the setup between the Sprint and today’s qualifying.”for now The Italian engineer congratulated the team and drivers for increasing the car’s capabilities during the day. Morning conditions showed McLaren a tenth behind Ferrari, certainly a more unusual picture than the one painted by Lando Norris, who announced that the goal would be. “important points”when the podium is there “unattainable”.

The dish has confirmed the change to the configuration of the two MCL38, but it is not revolutionary according to the Australian who indirectly confirmed that the MCL38 is an easy single seater, justifying its competition from the first laps of the weekend: “The team has changed the planning a little, the truth is that with these cars it is very easy what you want to do to make them go faster, so there are not many things that can be changed, at least for us. “I’ve made a few tweaks here and there but nothing major.” Today Ferrari proved to be at least a few tenths faster than the Woking team, preventing any unexpected incidents in the chaotic first sequence of corners. Piastri and Norris will have to deal with a client as uncomfortable as Fernando Alonso, who has the ability to defend himself very well and manage the situation of the match to increase his results. Further back, McLaren strategists will have to watch George Russell’s Mercedes, which will start behind the Reds in eighth.