Similarly the deal struck with Norris might not save McLaren should the driver attract the interest of a bigger beast. Daniel Ricciardo’s deal didn’t save him at the end of last year when McLaren chose to terminate. That said, a contract is a contract only as far as it serves the interests of both parties. How much his prospects are damaged depends on McLaren’s recuperative powers. There are a lot of good things in place we just haven’t been maximising them as much as we should.” Little things here and there, but we need to be doing a better job with what we have now. Half of that is the wind tunnel and the simulator, those sorts of things, they are getting closer and closer. “We haven’t been able to improve the way we wanted to these last couple of years. And in June the new wind tunnel comes online. There will be two further upgrades, the first in the summer followed by a final iteration after the four-week shut-down in August. The car will undergo profound change as the season progresses, beginning with a new floor design scheduled for deployment at the next race in Baku. New team principal Andrea Stella, who replaced Audi-bound Andreas Seidl last December, announced the appointment of David Sanchez from Ferrari to head up the concept and performance division, working alongside aerodynamicist Peter Prodromou and design engineer Neil Houldley. McLaren have responded to the disappointing start to the season by announcing a management restructure which included the exit of technical director James Key. Both finished well down the field after Piastri damaged his wing at turn one and Norris broke his on the resulting debris. Norris went out in Q1 having clipped a wall. Though Norris had the better of the opening Bahrain weekend, as far as it is possible to qualify in such terms the performance of a car McLaren admit failed the physics exam as emphatically as Mercedes, Piastri managed to qualify in the top 10 in Saudi Arabia. He is also Australian, a feature that pushes Norris further from the centre of things as he returns to a Melbourne paddock where he made his F1 debut four years ago flush with the same eagerness to prove himself displayed by Piastri. Oscar Piastri is a week away from his 22nd birthday and full of running. Norris is joined at McLaren this season by a kid 18 months his junior. Though still a baby at 23, the rate of evolution in Formula One has a way of making even young men feel that time is slipping through their fingers. There comes a moment in the experience of any would-be champion when the synapses no longer respond to fiscal prompts, no matter how much of a turn-on that £20m-a-year contract was when Norris signed his extended deal 12 months ago. Two races into his fifth season at McLaren and Norris is fumbling about in an uncompetitive car with little prospect of delivering that first career win his talent has always promised. Lando Norris is some way yet from the question “where did it all go wrong?” Yet not perhaps from the realisation that there is more to validation in Formula One than pound notes.
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