McLaren had the quicker cars at Suzuka last weekend but Max Verstappen beat both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to pole position and then the race victory regardless
Lando Norris has challenged his McLaren team to be more “attacking” after they were shown up by Max Verstappen at Suzuka last weekend. McLaren clearly have the quickest car on the grid right now but neither Norris nor team-mate Oscar Piastri could get past the Dutchman on Sunday.
With overtaking difficult their only real chance was in the pits, but Norris stopped on the same lap as Verstappen and, despite a slow Red Bull tyre change, he couldn’t get past. Norris’ lead in the championship was cut to just one point as a result and the Brit wants to get back to winning ways in Bahrain this weekend.
He said: “We were not happy after last weekend. Second and third is a great result as a team, still. But could it have been better potentially, and could we have potentially taken more risks and have been a bit more attacking as a team? Yes.
“I stand by our approach with that weekend, but [after] a review into these weekends, [we need] to be a bit more attacking at times. At times, I might want to take more risk to go for a win. I want to accept second is not a bad result, but I need to win races and not settle for second.
“Definitely, from my side, I would love to go and kind of go back and redo things with a slightly more aggressive approach. But I do know deep down that it’s a long season, and sometimes points on the board is better than taking unnecessary risks.”
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Verstappen needed one of the best qualifying laps of his career to secure the pole position which was the foundation of his first win of 2025. But the four-time champion is not optimistic of a repeat on a much rougher Bahrain track surface and with temperatures sky high in the Gulf state.
He said: “I think because the track [temperature] then dropped quite a bit on the day [in Suzuka], that helped a bit. Here in Bahrain, it’s going to be hot, we have aggressive tarmac. So on paper, from what we’ve seen, so far this season, that’s not ideal for us, compared to McLaren. It’s up to us, of course, to try and find those improvements in the car or tyre behaviour.”
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McLaren have never won the Bahrain Grand Prix since it joined the sport’s calendar more than 20 years ago. And though his rivals are all predicting they will finally break their duck, Norris says he still expects “good competition” from Verstappen as well as Ferrari and Mercedes.
He said: “I think our advantage will be lessened compared to previous weekends. Trickier track, slower-speed circuit, which has not been as favourable for us, and is where the car is in a trickier state compared to what we had potentially last year.”
Ferrari upgrade for Lewis Hamilton confirmed
Lewis Hamilton will have an upgraded Ferrari to drive in Bahrain this weekend – but accepts he isn’t likely to be fighting against the McLarens in it. The seven-time champ said after last Sunday’s race that the Italian team had identified “something underperforming” on his car.
Yesterday he confirmed: “We’ve got a new floor this weekend, so I’m excited. The team has worked really hard to bring [upgrades], as teams do. They work incredibly hard to be able to bring upgrades. To have that here at the track that we tested at, [with] more knowledge about the car and how to extract more from it, I feel really positive for the rest of the weekend.”
Other than his sprint race win in China last month, Hamilton’s Ferrari career is off to an underwhelming start. And the 40-year-old knows there is still a way to go before he can fight fairly with fellow Brit Norris.
He said: “We’re trying to figure out how to catch them. Hopefully, this weekend, it’s a step forward for us. It’s not necessarily closing the gap, but it’s going towards closing the gap – it’s not going to close the gap completely. But if we can extract more from the car, which is what we’re trying to work on, hopefully we can see better results.”
