Norris satisfied: 'The MCL60 is reliable'

Although test days in Bahrain do not officially start until Thursday, McLaren already took its MCL60 onto the track for a shakedown on Tuesday. Lando Norris explained how this went.

Last year, McLaren failed to make it beyond P5 in the Constructors' Championship, so there is still work to be done if they want to compete for the top three in 2023. The 2022 season did not start well for the English team and they want to do that differently this year. Norris therefore told Motorsport.com that the shakedown was already very important for the team and it shows they are already off to a better start compared to 2022.

On 5 March, the starting gun will sound for the first race this season. This, like the test days, will take place at the Bahrain International Circuit. A reliable car is already important at that very first race. “I'm happy the team are happy [about the first run]. There's a lot of hard work to make sure we start smoothly, and we start with the reliability, and get everything on top of where it should be. They've done exactly that, so yeah, super important,” Norris said.

Footage has come out showing the first run, but McLaren has filmed and edited it in such a way that one cannot yet see the latest technical details of the car. In the video below of Oscar Piastri in the MCL60, for example, you can see that the floor has been blurred out.