The papayas are back
Finally, smiles are appearing inside the McLaren garage this season. After the disastrous showing in China, with the double retirement of both cars even before the start of the race, on Suzuka Saturday the papaya cars returned as protagonists. Impossible to get close to the Mercedes, but Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris managed to get in between the Ferraris: the Australian took third position on the grid ahead of Charles Leclerc and the Englishman obtained fifth place – beaten by just a few thousandths by Leclerc himself – ahead of the second red car of Lewis Hamilton.
Strong when it counts
“I think we can enjoy the day we had – declared Piastri, who hopes to finally be able to start his first race of the year tomorrow, given that he hasn’t completed a single lap so far – it was a great performance for us. We did a great job all weekend, putting things in place at the right time. Yesterday in FP2 we looked strong; in FP3 not so much, but in qualifying when it counted we were strong. We still need to find some pace to catch Mercedes, but this is a good step forward and I’m happy to have executed a good lap with the material available, so I’m quite satisfied“.
Read more Antonelli’s “statement” at Suzuka and Leclerc’s talent in the first sector
Norris stronger than the troubles
Words of satisfaction were also expressed by world champion Lando Norris, whose fifth place is still to be evaluated positively given all the technical hitches that slowed down car #1 during the weekend: “I think many things went better – the Englishman observed – as a team we are managing to exploit the car better. On my part, obviously I haven’t done a sufficient number of laps to understand everything and to feel comfortable, but I have the impression that we are making progress as a team. We look closer, we look better; if I had done more laps this weekend I would have felt a bit better today too, but it wasn’t bad, though we still have to do even better”.
