Lando Norris believes that McLaren have the capabilities to replicate the level of progress made by Aston Martin during the off-season. Fears about McLaren's level of performance in Bahrain were realised when Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri ran outside the points-paying positions and encountered technical problems. Norris made several pit stops to remedy a pneumatics problem, and Piastri retired in the first half of the race with electronics issues. When asked by RacingNews365.com if McLaren's MCL60 is a fixable car, Norris responded: "I certainly think a big part of it is." "We've clearly seen how big of a step Aston Martin have taken from one year to another, and how big of a step Ferrari took from 2021 to 2022. "I know both of those were in the off-seasons, and maybe there's more potential to do such a big changes, but there's no reason why 50% or 75% of that can't be done through the season."
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella was less committed to aiming for the strides seen by Aston Martin or Ferrari, but expressed his belief in being able to reduce the gap to the cars ahead, even before their previously-mentioned facility upgrades. "I think that for the level of talent, and for the availability we have at McLaren already, we can recover and we can out-develop other teams," commented Stella. "What we see in development right now is a very alive car, in terms of development. There are some areas of the car that seem to be able to generate good downforce. "Like I've said already, they were not ready in time to be part of the launch spec, but this car will evolve pretty much race-by-race, with some major upgrades that will come... I would say around race four."
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