Lando Norris reveals the "big difference" that cost McLaren in Ferrari fight

Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc — Photo: © LAT Images

McLaren

Norris reveals the "big difference" that cost McLaren in Ferrari fight

Ferrari jumped ahead of McLaren after a late-season power unit upgrade

Sam Hall

Saturday 1 January 2022 18:20

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Lando Norris claims Ferrari's late-season power unit upgrade proved to be the "big difference" that resulted in McLaren losing out in last season's fight for third in the F1 constructors' championship.

McLaren and Ferrari were engaged in a season-long battle over third place in the standings.

Despite scoring the only one-two of any team throughout the season at the Italian Grand Prix, McLaren suffered a late-season slump.

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Explaining the situation in an end-of-season interview, including GPFans, Norris said: "Our pace, probably relative to P1, was quite similar [to 2020].

"But our pace relative to Ferrari...Ferrari went forwards. And Ferrari, compared to the leaders, went forwards.

"We were in a very similar position, but Ferrari moved forward, especially with the power unit upgrade. It made a big difference for them.

"Then the tracks where we were bad were also ones where Ferrari was a little bit stronger.

"It's quite simple how you put it together, and then all of it makes sense. It makes us look worse, although we were probably doing exactly the same effort and the same performance every weekend.

"These simple things can just make us look good or bad and make people change their perspectives of us."

As was the case with the majority of teams, McLaren switched a large amount of its focus to the incoming 2022 aerodynamic regulations early on in the year.

Asked if this had played a role in McLaren's late-season difficulties, Norris added: "No, I think that most of it has just been that there were only certain circuits we were actually very strong.

"[The] Red Bull Ring was obviously one of them, Sochi was another. I think if it was a completely dry weekend, and Mercedes were one-two, we still would've been probably one second off the pole.

"It looked much better because the conditions were tricky in qualifying, Mercedes did a terrible job, but we did a good job."