Lando Norris Mexican GP ‘mission’ set as Ferrari warning issued

Lando Norris may have an easier path to a big points haul this year in Mexico than he did last season, but Andrea Stella has urged him to “replicate” 2023’s pace.

Last season Norris had a wretched qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix as car troubles, a driver mistake and finally a yellow flag meant he ended up down in 17th place.

Lando Norris has been urged to ‘replicate’ his 2023 Mexican GP performance

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

Vowing to “bounce back” in the Grand Prix, the McLaren driver put in an epic drive to gain 12 places as he raced his way to P5.

This season scoring big points, even a podium, should be an easier quest as he’ll line up third on the grid behind pole-sitter Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen.

But his team boss still wants him to drive the car like he did last season.

“That’s the mission, replicate what we have been able to do last year with Lando scoring a good amount of points,” he told Sky F1.

“I think the car in terms of race pace, has always been quite competitive here, based on what we saw in the long runs. Again, looks competitive. So we have the conditions to do so we need to get back in the points.”

Norris currently sits 57 points down on Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship but it could be Ferrari who prove to be the bigger obstacle in Mexico as the Scuderia look to follow up their United States GP 1-2 result with another victory.

Stella believes this weekend McLaren should be closer to them in race pace.

“I think looking back at Austin, Ferrari was quite a bit ahead in the Sprint, a little bit less in the race,” he said. “I think in the race we couldn’t really see Lando’s pace because we lost positions at the start.

“Overall, I would say our car looks closer to Ferrari during this weekend, so hopefully we will be able to contend for the victory, and we don’t have to forget that Max is there as well.”

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But are Ferrari now McLaren’s most ‘dangerous opponent’?

That question was put to Stella during his post-qualifying debrief with the media including PlanetF1.com.

“As McLaren, we are focused on ourselves,” he replied. “We don’t have any particular competitor that we are mostly focused on.

“And for us, it has been clear for a long time that Ferrari is very credible contender for the championship.

“This has been clear potentially even more after the upgrade they took to Italy in Monza and if we look at Baku. I think they had the quickest car in Singapore but they took themselves out of the contention for the victory in qualifying.

“But looking at the outright pace, I think Ferrari recently have been the most competitive car, so no surprise that they are in contention for in the quest for the championship, and our focus is on ourselves and obviously monitoring all our competitors.

“But for us, we don’t have any sort of particular interest in considering Red Bull or Mercedes or Ferrari. For us, they are all the same.”

McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari start the Mexican GP separated by just 48 points in the Constructors’ Championship , where McLaren lead by 40 ahead of Red Bull with Ferrari a further eight off the pace with 250 points still in play.

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