Lando Norris points to surprise team to support ongoing McLaren claim

Lando Norris believes his failure to pass Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is proof that McLaren is not as dominant as is being suggested.

Starting 10th in Jeddah, Norris quickly cleared the likes of Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli.

However, he had trouble passing Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari, more down to race-craft than underlying speed of the two cars, with Hamilton using the DRS into Turn 1 to re-pass Norris twice.

Eventually clearing Hamilton, on his counter-strategy, Norris was placed on the medium tyres for the final charge, easily dispatching George Russell's Mercedes, but he could not reel in third-placed Leclerc for a podium spot.

In the end, Norris was 1.092s behind Leclerc at the flag, with the Briton believing that it was evidence of Ferrari being closer to McLaren in terms of pace than is currently accepted, with the MCL39 regarded as the class of the field.

"I don't know why people are so surprised, they are just as quick in qualifying and in most sessions," Norris told Sky Sports F1 when asked if he was surprised by Ferrari's pace in Jeddah. 

"Just because we are quick in practice, people keep coming up with all this crap, and they can keep saying what they want, but we don't believe we're much ahead, as it shows.

"Max was probably quickest [in the Saudi Arabian GP], so we have work to do. People keep saying we are the best, we are the quickest blah blah blah, but that is because we show a bit more pace in practice, and then don't have anything left in qualifying.

"But that is our way of doing things, that is how we feel we optimise things, and if we didn't do it that way, we'd be even further back.

"I am happy with the work we are doing, people just need to recalibrate that we're not, that we have a great car, and probably the quickest on average, but clearly not enough."