While both teams battled for the best fourth place behind Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes for most of the race, Alpine has stretched its legs in recent races
Positive development of the A522 helped Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon extend their advantage to 24 points, and now it seems to be the favourite to keep its place with more upgrades.
But instead of being pessimistic about where McLaren is in the fight against Alpine, Norris actually thinks his team has done an impressive job Profound work, considering how fast its competitors are.
“The Alps have been ahead of us since the first day of the season and have been ahead of us overall,” Norris explained at Monza on Thursday.
“There might be three or four races this season and we might just be a little bit faster than them. Otherwise, most people, easily most people, they’ve flocked to n better cars .
“So it’s more for them to just be ahead of us in the championship: we did well and they did poorly”
Norris cites the Australian Grand Prix as an example where Alonso could have started in the front but was derailed due to car problems, as an example of an Alpine tripping.
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
“It’s never been the opposite when you look at their qualifying gap with us, sometimes their speed in the race sometimes compared to us. So they have a better car.
“They’ve done worse all season and made more mistakes. They have more problems with their cars.
” Fernando’s platoon in Australia P2 or P3 in a race and we’re a few miles away. So yes, they have a better car, and they have it almost all season. “
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Since last year with home teammate Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren’s famous Norris returned to Monza for the first time in the 1-2 race.
But he was clear that there was no expectation that the team would repeat such a strong result this time, and the current MCL36 did not enjoy the The straight-line speed advantage of the car in the season.
“In general, we were not competitive to last season,” he said. “Everyone else took some good steps forward, Such as Alpine.
is also ahead of us. So if you want to get back on the podium, you’ll have to drive two more cars.
“We’re still going to do our best, we won’t come to the game thinking that’s what we were in last year, so we should do the same thing.
” At Zandvoort, I personally think this year has been a lot better for us than last year. So some things are definitely better.
“But I mean, it’s obvious. We didn’t get on the podium like we did last year and get [as many] good qualifying. It’s just because of the car The balance as a season is not that good.”
