Lando Norris points to long-term problem McLaren must fix

Lando Norris believes his McLaren team must work to rectify its issues with tyre graining after a Mercedes drubbing in the Australian GP.

Norris finished 51 seconds behind race winner George Russell in Melbourne, despite both cars sharing a Mercedes HPP power unit, regarded as the class of the field.

The reigning back-to-back world champions have slipped back in the pecking order atthe start of F1's new era, with Mercedes and Ferrari both out front, with McLaren and Red Bull vying for third best as the top four teams hold a major advantage over the other seven outfits.

Whilst Norris feels the deficit to Russell at Albert Park was not a true reflection of the pace of the MCL40 machine, he did feel the team needed to fix its issues with tyre graining, a trait he felt had not been rectified from previous McLaren cars.

"With the following and overtaking, all those things make a big difference, so on pure pace, are we 50 seconds behind? No," Norris told media, including RacingNews365. 

"If I had a clean race like George, then it would look better for us, but we had, so I don't think it is dreadful, but we killed the tyres after three laps.

"And then we have our graining issues, as we have had, and that has not changed from one car ot the next, so we have a lot to try and figure out. 

"The good thing is that we have a big gap to the cars behind, which are similar to Red Bull, and the bad thing is that we have a big gap to the cars ahead.

"So [the race] was more of an understanding that we are nowhere near where we need to be with the car, and we've got to improve that."