After a challenging Qualifying session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Lando Norris admitted that McLaren lacked their usual edge, as the Briton qualified seventh for the 2025 F1 Canadian GP. Despite topping FP3 earlier on Saturday, Norris acknowledged that the team struggled to extract the same performance come Saturday afternoon in the print media pen.
“I think we’ve clearly not been as quick as normal. I think that’s just because of the layout of the track.
“Decent, I think the car has not been performing relatively well. I was happy through all of qualifying.
“Maybe not the car to take pole today, but good enough to be up there and fighting for top three.”
Norris, who narrowly missed out on a top-five start, pointed to the slippery nature of the Montreal circuit as a particular challenge for McLaren.
“It’s very low grip. I think, first of all, it’s one of the bigger things. And, therefore, the car balance just never comes together as much as what it does on other tracks,” he explained.
“Probably just low grip and some of the kerb riding bumps, which just hurts us, it seems, more than some others.”
Asked whether those issues were unique to this year’s surface, Norris replied: “It’s always the same here. It’s just not a track that gets used much. You see in the lap times from what we do in F1 to Quali, it improves by four seconds or something.
“Just a lot of track improvement. We kind of get there in the end. I think we just weren’t quick enough today. Clearly just a step behind where we needed to be.”
Changing the car
One key topic of conversation in the McLaren garage has been a recent car revision aimed at improving driver feedback rather than outright pace. However, Norris admitted it’s too early to assess its impact: “It’s tough to say because this track, everything just feels different.
“So, I think it’s something we’ll have to wait and see on the next few races through Austria and Silverstone and so forth to understand.
“And maybe back-to-back tests between them both, but it’s nothing that I’ve felt just yet.
“It can be a benefit elsewhere, but it’s not a guarantee that it’s going to be a benefit just yet.
“So, it’s aimed to maybe give a bit more feeling. It’s not aimed to make us quicker or give the car more performance. So, it’s again something that we’ll have to review over time.”
Norris’s qualifying woes
In recent races, Norris has often struggled to maximise the final segment of qualifying. Saturday in Montreal proved no different as he made multiple mistakes in Q3 to only qualify 8th.
“Yeah, just a couple of big mistakes, one hitting the wall on the last lap in the exit of 7 and first lap, last corner, I think.
“So yeah, just two mistakes that cost me I guess.
“Yeah, I would say so [the lack of feeling in the car like previous qualifying sessions]. I mean, it’s a very easy track to just push 1% too much and pay the price, and that’s what I did today.”
Looking ahead to Sunday, the Norris remained cautiously optimistic, recognising the unpredictability that often defines races at the Canadian GP, with the McLaren driver saying: “I hope so, yeah, I mean, they’ll make my race a bit more interesting and yeah, the more opportunity that comes my way, the better tomorrow.
“I mean, I think we can go forwards anyway, but not a lot. It’s not like we’re easy 1-2, like we have been in other tracks, so it’s going to be a bit more difficult, but yeah, anything that can help us will be very well.”
When asked whether a podium was on the cards, Norris gave a measured response: “I think a podium is tough, just because we don’t have the pace we’ve had in the last few races.
“But it could be easily a one, two or a three-stop, depending on how the tyres behave tomorrow.
“So, of course, I’ll hope for a bit more to happen, but not as confident as in other places, for sure.
“Still confident we can go forwards, but clearly I think we don’t have the best car today. So, it will be a struggle to get to the top.”
