Norris never wanted to leave McLaren during F1 slump
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McLaren endured a woeful start to the campaign, prompting suggestions that a frustrated Norris could seek an early exit from his contract that runs until the end of 2025. How have McLaren turned their 2023 F1 season around?Video of How have McLaren turned their 2023 F1 season around?But recent upgrades have helped McLaren complete a sensational turnaround, with Norris claiming back-to-back podiums at Silverstone and in Hungary as he finished runner-up behind Max Verstappen’s dominant Red Bull. McLaren CEO Zak Brown expressed confidence that the team’s recent upswing in form would ultimately convince the highly-rated 23-year-old to “stick around”. And speaking ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, Norris stressed that leaving McLaren never entered his mind despite a torrid start to the year. “There were frustrating times and just difficult times but at no point did I think this is not where I want to be,” Norris said on Thursday. “I guess there is always a bit of relief just going from any difficult situation to having such a big change around. Even if we just took half the step we did take I think we would still have seen that as a positive sign. But the step was even bigger than we were expecting.”So of course there’s relief, but not just for myself, I think for the whole team. We took quite a big step back over the winter to reassess everything that we’re doing and the route we’re taking and that’s why we were quite delayed with putting the upgrades that we’ve had in place and onto the car.Related FIRST LOOK: Reshaped Mercedes sidepods break cover at Belgian Verstappen claims Monaco is ‘a lot more dangerous’ than Spa”But we took our time, we had to stay patient. Of course, there were some times I wished we had a more competitive car and I wished we could have started the year in a smoother way – especially because last year’s start to the season was also very tough. It doesn’t give you a lot of hope in the beginning of the year when you’ve struggled as much as what we did.”I was still always very happy to be with the team that I’m with. I still have a lot of faith that McLaren are able to achieve their goals and at the same time achieve my goals which are to win races and win championships with them.”When you have days, upgrades and situations like this then of course there’s relief that there are very positive signs that we can jump ahead of Aston Martin, jump ahead of Ferrari, fight against Mercedes and not be far off a Red Bull from one upgrade.”
A secret meeting between Norris’ agent and Red Bull at the recent British Grand Prix sparked further speculation about the Briton’s long-term F1 future. But Norris reiterated he is delighted by the progress McLaren have made. ”The car is still difficult to drive, it’s difficult to be consistent, I think we need to do a better job with tyre management and so on, I think that was clear from last weekend that it was one of our weaker areas,” he added. “But I think we can be more than happy with the step forward that we’ve made.”As much as I’m always going to complain about certain things because that’s what every driver does, for us to go from where we were – struggling to get out of Q1 in the first few races – to fighting for pole is one of the biggest turnarounds in Formula 1 for a very long time and during the middle of the season.”I’m very happy and there are always things to improve on which we are trying to do.”
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