McLaren F1 has "pretty big" gap to Alpine after tough Friday in Hungary - Norris

💞Norris ended second practice at the Hungaroring in ninth, 1.3s down on Valtter𝓰i Bottas’ top time of the day.
The McLaren driver was ꦚsix-tenths off Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, who enjoyed 𓆏an impressive session as he ended the day fourth-fastest.
With Alpine and AlphaTauri looking surprisingly strong in practice, Norris says he’s unsur🍰e what the true midfield pecking orde🍸r is.
“No, Alpine were very fast today, AlphaTauri were very fast today,” Norris said. “Ferrari were maybe a little bit slower than we were expecting - 🅘I thought they’d be very fast here - so I don’🐬t know. Even we were expecting to be a bit better.
“The conditions are very different to what they were last year, it was much colder last year, thꩲe tarmac was still a bit fresher and newer. Iღt changes, it’s never the same, and we’ll sit down tonight and try to understand why and try to make some improvements because of that.”
Norris has finished in ꧟the top five in nine of the opening 10 rounds in 2021, leaving him 💮third in the drivers’ championship ahead of Bottas and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez.
He says progressing into Q3 is the priority given how difficult overtakiꦯng is at the Hungaroring.
“I reckon it’s been one of our tougher FP2s,” Norris explained. “We’re not amazing normally in FP2 but we never struggle quite as much as this, thℱe gap to Alpine was pretty big.
“So I think getting into Q3 is the main one, particularly as it’s a very qualifying-dominated track. Tomorrow’s the big day, so we’ll put 🐠all of our eggs into it right🐎 now.”
With track temperatures over🥃 60 degrees, conditions 💞were tricky for most of the teams as they suffered from overheating.
“Yeah it just doesn’t feel nice to drive,” Norris added. “When you want to put a qualifying lap together you want to fe🧸el like you’re really on the limit everywhere and now it feels so easy to be over the limit if that makes sense, as a driver it just doesn’t feel particularly nice. We’ll try to make some more improvements tomorrow and see if we can get anymore lap time out of it.”

With a sharp eye for F1’s controversies and storylines, Connor ಞis the heartbeat of our unbiased reporting.