Lando Norris finds himself with “extra motivation” as McLaren battle for third in the Constructors’ Championship.
Just six points cover the Woking-based outfit, Racing Point and Renault with six races to go, with Racing Point claiming the narrow advantage after the Eifel Grand Prix.
And for Norris, the bragging rights of finishing ‘best of the rest’ behind Mercedes and Red Bull is giving him plenty of energy as the season enters its closing stretch.
“It’s nice to go into every weekend like this because you can find extra motivation thinking about it,” he said ahead of the Portuguese GP.
“Of course, I don’t go into every weekend thinking about the Championship or trying to hold that position in the Championship, but it still motivates me and makes me push a little bit more.”
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While McLaren and Racing Point have fought tooth and nail all season, since Spa it has been Renault producing the big results, with Daniel Ricciardo alone scoring 68 points.
“Obviously, there have been ups and downs. We started the year very well and managed to get the maximum from the first few races,” Norris, who finished third in Austria, continued.
“As a team, we started very strongly, especially on my side. In this way, we had the advantage at first.
“Renault had a very strong rise in the middle of the season. I’ve made mistakes in a few places. Some tracks didn’t suit us as well as Renault,” he explained.
“We’re pushing too hard and trying to keep our position, but at the same time, it’s not that easy to achieve.
“One weekend we’re slightly ahead, while another weekend we may be slightly behind. So when we’re behind or we have the faster car, we try to get the maximum and earn more points.”
The main issue McLaren have had is extracting performance from their upgrades, having introduced a Mercedes-style front nose several races ago.
But Lando is confident that as the team gets more data, and brings further new parts, the speed will come.
“We haven’t had many updates during the year. We started the season with a very good package and it took a while to understand it,” the Briton explained.
“We’ve had a few updates in Russia, and there’s still going to be some minor updates this weekend, but they’re still not updates that will allow us to get second place in the Championship or do special things.
“We’re trying to put it all together and we want to make sure the car is working properly. We are trying to get the maximum from the package.”