F1 | McLaren, Lando Norris: “Happy, but there is still a lot of work to do”

The first free practice session was not kind to McLaren: Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris finished in twelfth and thirteenth position. The Spaniard hit the wall, while Norris concentrated on aerodynamic tests to understand the new components brought to Sochi by the Woking team. In the afternoon, however, everything changed: Carlos and Lando occupied fourth and fifth position, the first behind the two Mercedes and an incredible Daniel Ricciardo, third. The challenge for qualification therefore seems to be heating up, with some surprises thanks to the mid-table teams, the only ones to light up this now marked Formula 1 season.

"Complicated day. FP1 was no walk in the park – Lando admitted – obviously, we have new components on the car, so we did some aerodynamic testing to try to understand the performance on the track. There were a lot of breakdowns, so the first session was a bit chaotic and we weren't able to complete our laps. We tried to make up for the time lost in FP2 and we succeeded. I was more comfortable with the car, we made some progress with the balance and I'm confident for tomorrow, but we still have a lot of work to do if we want to be as competitive as our rivals. All in all, complicated day, but I'm happy".