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Lando Norris reveals 'pressure on' as 'surreal' McLaren situation hits home on F1 return
Lando Norris was effectively left pinching himself in witnessing
the "crazy" and "surreal" situation of seeing the No.1 on his car
as he returned to F1 as the sport's champion. Just over seven weeks
after clinching his maiden title by just two points over Red Bull's
four-time champion Max Verstappen, Norris drove out of the McLaren
garage at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya sporting the highly
prized number. It was a case of better late than never due to
McLaren's delays in the build of the MCL40, which Norris has
claimed was only finally put together on Wednesday morning before
it made its maiden track appearance. Norris went on to complete a
solid 76 laps, with his best a 1:18.307s on new softs, finishing
just under a second behind the leading time of the week so far from
Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, albeit with times at this stage
relatively meaningless. "It was nice to be back," said Norris.
"Nice to see a number one on my car. Pretty cool, pretty surreal
still, so good feelings." Addressing the honour of the No.1, Norris
added: "I saw it earlier on the timing screen, and I still find it
just unbelievable. It's still a crazy thing to see, especially when
you see it now. Now is the first time I get to see it on my suit,
on the car, on timing screens, all of these things, and it looks
good. "Still a surreal feeling, the whole situation of being
champion. But it doesn't change anything, apart from the fact that
I'm at the top of the timing screens before we've even gone out
because I'm the lowest number. "Now, pressure is on, but at the
same time, it's just cool. It's great for the mechanics, for all of
them to have that feeling and that honour, but it doesn't change
anything. "Otherwise, it's still a lot of hard work that we have to
put into everything, and many laps you've got to complete, but it's
nice to know that I've got that number on." Norris 'going through
the manual' McLaren had hoped to initially run on Monday but
delayed its debut due to the car build, with Tuesday's wet weather
affording them an additional day's grace, albeit boxing the team in
to conducting all of its running in the final three days. As far as
Norris was concerned, he and McLaren ultimately ticked all the
boxes available to them on the opening day. "Our first day on
track, first time that everyone gets to see the car in one piece,
it's literally not been built until this morning," he said. "It's
an incredible thing. "So it's nice to see it all come together, to
see all the hard work that everyone does to make that car, and then
I get to go and have some fun and drive it, which turned out to be
a decent day. "Today was really a first understanding of the whole
car, understanding how it works, going through the manual of
everything. "It was a productive day, but it's one that was about
figuring stuff out, making sure things are working as they should,
understanding things, getting our first picture and all of it. "So,
a good day for me, just to be back driving again, understanding
some of the differences, but a good one for the engineers, the
mechanics, the whole team, to get the first look at the regulations
of this year."
