Norris reveals McLaren plan to BEAT Verstappen despite F1 dominance

Lando Norris has claimed that McLaren's time to claim their first win of the season will come by the end of the 2023, stating he was happy to have "finally proved some people wrong."

The Woking-based team were arguably the slowest car on the grid for the opening couple of races in Bahrain and Jeddah, but have steadily climbed the order since.

McLaren had settled nicely into the midfield before taking a major step forward at the British Grand Prix, securing their first podium of the season.

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With Norris claiming back-to-back P2 finishes and Oscar Piastri finishing in P4 and P5 at Silverstone and the Hungaroring respectively, McLaren are now an established frontrunner in 2023.

Norris: Patience is key

When asked after the Hungarian Grand Prix whether he could win a race this season, Norris replied: "If Max [Verstappen] retires, or something, then maybe.

"At the minute, the guys are too quick. Unless they make mistakes or something happens… but at the moment, I think we’re very happy with the progress we’ve made.

"To go from where we were four, five races ago, struggling to get out of Q1 sometimes, to fighting for poles, and fighting for podiums, we’ll take it for now, and our time will come later on in the year."

Norris then touched on what McLaren have been doing to hunt down Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari at the front end of the grid.

"Just the obvious answer: a lot of hard work; great teamwork; everyone back in the factory did an amazing job.

"I think we knew it in the beginning: we were going to struggle and we looked pretty poor.

"We got a lot of abuse for McLaren, saying we weren’t doing a good-enough job. I’m happy we finally proved some people wrong."

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