Norris makes judgement on 2023 season: This is the year we needed

Lando Norris believes he had some of the "best races" of his Formula 1 career during the 2023 season.

The McLaren driver took seven podiums on his way to finishing sixth in the Drivers' Championship, and scored the second largest points tally after the summer break behind Max Verstappen.

He now hold the joint record with Nick Heidfeld of having the most podiums in F1 without a win at 13.

It has arguably been one of his most strong seasons, something Norris felt he could exploit after McLaren turned around their fortunes midway through the season.

"Since the halfway point of the season, I felt more confident and I feel like I've been getting the most out of car, especially from a racing perspective," he told media, including RacingNews365.

"I've just made a few too many mistakes in qualifying, which I think have been obvious and I've acknowledged. But I definitely think I've had some of my best races I've ever done.

"I believe that McLaren can continue turning things around, this was the year that we needed and the team needed to prove those things."

Norris: We didn't know how much we were going to improve

McLaren endured a tough start to the season with a double non-points finish at the two opening rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, while the team admitted that they missed their pre-season targets.

A major update at the Austrian Grand Prix enabled Norris to finish within the top five, while a strong finish for both drivers at the British GP showed the extent of their turnaround.

Norris would go on to have five more second-place finishes, while teammate Oscar Piastri took a second place in the Belgian GP Sprint race and at the Qatar GP.

"The beginning was tough because I thought it was going to be for a whole year, we didn't know how much we were going to improve. Especially the very beginning," he said Norris.

"Of course, we said we'll be a bit patient and we've got some decent things coming. But in the past few years, when you've had decent things come in they've not always stood up to be that much of an improvement.

"This year was quite the opposite and turned out to be almost a bigger improvement than we were expecting."