Lando Norris believes McLaren are only the fifth fastest team on the F1 grid

Lando Norris has claimed that McLaren are not as quick as previously thought, rating them as only the fifth fastest team on the grid.

After showing great progress in the past few campaigns, including winning their first race in nine years last season, McLaren’s form in 2022 has been wildly mixed.

Following a disastrous opening race in Bahrain, things improved in Saudi Arabia with Norris finishing seventh, before the Brit and teammate Daniel Ricciardo came home fifth and sixth in Australia.

In Imola, Norris recorded McLaren’s first podium of the season. Many assumed that the team had worked out its issues and now possessed a very competitive car.

However, at last weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, the Woking-based outfit struggled for pace again, with Norris eventually crashing out after making contact with Pierre Gasly, while Ricciardo could only muster a 13th placed finish.

Asked whereabouts he thought McLaren were pace-wise, Norris told Motorsport-total.com: ‘I think we are behind Mercedes.

‘We are also behind Alfa Romeo but are well in the running with Alpine and AlphaTauri. Haas are somewhere in that region as well.

‘So, I think it’s quite simple – it’s tight.

‘In the [Miami] race, we have decent pace. It’s just going to take a bit more for us to take on Mercedes and the guys in front. If we can do that, we can be happy.

‘Miami has a lot of slow corners where Mercedes have one of the best cars in the field. From day one, the Mercedes has been good in those sections.

‘I guess they figured out this weekend how to get more potential out of the car. So, I’m not surprised, it’s been like that in Formula 1 for years. Sometimes your car suits the track, sometimes it suits another car better.’

From the five races so far this year,