Lando Norris says McLaren are "not in the best place" after Japanese Grand Prix practice, with them finding the wet conditions tricky to extract performance. After going eighth quickest in the first session, Norris tumbled down the timesheets with teammate Daniel Ricciardo to 16th and 17th respectively four seconds off George Russell at the end of FP2. "Pleasant to be back. Maybe not such a good day back in the car in terms of actual performance, there is quite a few things we're lacking on track at the minute," Norris explained to media. "So not in the best place but hopefully we can gain some things for tomorrow."
McLaren work to understand Intermediate crossover
With most of the times being set on the Intermediate tyre, Norris says the session largely enabled McLaren to gather data to understand the crossover point better on the wet-to-dry tyre compound. He added: "Just getting an understanding of intermediate tyre, the wet tyres, there's always things to learn. "Whether it's a bad day or a good day you can still kind of understand things and know what direction you need to move in. "So so a good day for for learning and understanding which is not such a good day in terms of actual performance."
Wet conditions could be challenging for McLaren in race
It looks set to be sunny for Japanese GP qualifying, but that might change for the race on Sunday when more rain is expected to hit the track. Speaking on their chances, Norris believes that the wet conditions might be less favourable for the team despite their performance in Singapore which yielded a top five finish for both cars. "I mean, if it's going to be dry tomorrow, absolutely no idea. If it's wet, it's not looking too good."
Most read
