After the practice sessions on Friday, McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri showed optimism. They decide to have a good start to the race weekend and they expect to be able to compete at the front.
During the first practice session, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris had an eighth and tenth fastest time. Both are cautiously optimistic for the rest of the race weekend in Suzuka.
“Not much happened today during the second practice session, but I finally managed to complete a few laps in tricky conditions at the end,” Piastri reflects on Friday in Suzuka. “I think we’re at about where we were before. There was no more than that, we’ll see what we can achieve on Saturday. I think we have a competitive car.”
“We have learned something about the car and I think we are in a good position, but it is difficult to estimate.”
After a very strong race in Australia, where Norris and Piastri finished in P3 and P4, McLaren hopes to maintain the momentum and also finish firmly in the points during the Japanese GP. Norris was already enthusiastic, although he thought the moment of the red flag due to Logan Sargeant’s crash was particularly bad for him.
“While I was doing my best lap there was the red flag and then the tires performed less well on the second lap,” said Norris, who also drove with a different amount of downforce than teammate Piastri. “I tried something, I tried to drive with a little less downforce and it wasn’t too good. I’m sure we will improve it by Saturday so that the final feeling before qualifying is better.”
“The car is still good. It’s just that Ferrari seems to have taken a serious step forward and they are in front of us.”
“I think we are in a good position ourselves, probably the third fastest team, but Mercedes and Aston are very, very close to us, as you would expect. Ferrari and Red Bull have too much of a lead.”
“It would have been nice if we could have driven a bit more. But the car is performing in a window that we expected and thought we would be in.”