Lando Norris feels that McLaren "have to take a step" in 2023 following a difficult campaign for the team. The Woking-based squad had a tough weekend at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, which followed on from the team experiencing technical issues during testing ahead of the first race. Their fortunes seemed to improve when Norris claimed a podium at the fourth event on the calendar, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. This proved to be the only top three finish for a team other than Red Bull, Ferrari or Mercedes in 2022. However, McLaren ultimately lost out to Alpine in the battle for P4 of the Constructors' Championship, and Norris hopes that their efforts to move forwards will pay off in 2023.
Norris: One podium isn't enough
While Norris remains proud of his podium result at Imola, he also acknowledges that he wants to achieve much more. "A podium always means something," the Briton told media, including RacingNews365.com . "It means something to me, it means something to the team. But one isn't enough. One is like... we got lucky and all of this stuff. "You want to feel like you deserve to be there every time, and we deserve to be there, for sure. We weren't quick enough to be there. We were kind of way ahead of where we deserved to be. "But one time isn't enough for me. It's not a good enough job by the whole team, and all of that is down to the car we've had."
'A lot of learning' ahead for McLaren, says Norris
Norris – who will be joined by new teammate Oscar Piastri in 2023, with the rookie replacing Daniel Ricciardo at the squad – feels positive about the work that McLaren are putting in in order to improve for the season ahead. However, he feels that there is still a lot in 2022 that they need to learn from. "Everyone's working hard now," Norris explained. "Everyone knows that, it's not like it's a new thing. We know we've had a very tough season, we found it difficult. "We've been quite up and down; we've had a weekend like [Abu Dhabi] where we've been quick, and then in Brazil [we had] one of our worst weekends of the whole season. "So we've had one of the biggest lows and then maybe one of the best highs of the year in the final two weekends. [There is] a lot of understanding still for us, a lot of learning. "We need to take a step next year. We have to take a step, and it seems like everyone's putting in the effort to do so, so time will tell."
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