Alpine have “done a pretty bad job” not to be further ahead of us – Norris

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Lando Norris says it’s no surprise Alpine have started to pull ahead of McLaren in the championship as they have a faster car.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, in which McLaren scored a one-two last year, Norris cast doubt on his team’s chances of preventing Alpine from taking the fourth place in the constructors championship McLaren scored last year.

“In general, we’re not as competitive compared to last season,” he told media including RaceFans. “Also, everyone else has taken some good steps forward, such as Alpine. So I think just competition’s tough. Obviously Ferrari are a long way ahead of us as well so that’s an extra two cars which we have to get out of the way if we want to be back on the podium.

“We’ll still try and give it our all. I think we don’t come into races thinking ‘this is where we were last year, we should do exactly the same’. Zandvoort, I personally think, was a lot better for us this year than it was last year. So some things are definitely better.

“But I mean, it’s obvious we’ve not scored as many podiums and good qualifying [performances] as last year and that’s just simply because the car as a balance throughout the season has not been as good.”

While Alpine have brought a steady stream of updates for their A522, McLaren’s developments for its MCL36 has been more sporadic. But although Alpine only moved ahead of McLaren in the points four races ago, Norris believes their rivals have always had the potential to out-score them.

“Alpine have been ahead of us pretty much since day one of the season, like generally have been ahead of us,” said Norris. “There’s maybe three or four races this season where we might just have been a little bit quicker than them.

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“Otherwise though the majority, and quite easily the majority, they’ve been a better car. So for them to only just be ahead of us in the championship is more of a ‘we’ve done a very good job and they’ve done a pretty bad job’.”

With seven races left, Alpine have 125 points to McLaren’s 101. Norris has taken the majority of his team’s haul – 82 – while Alpine’s score is split more evenly between Esteban Ocon on 66 and Fernando Alonso on 59.

Norris believes the A522 is fundamentally a quicker car but reliability problems and other setbacks for Alpine have kept McLaren in contention.

“When you see the margins of qualifying from them to us sometimes, their pace in the race comparing to us sometimes, it’s never that much the opposite way around,” he said. “So they have a better car, they’ve just done a worse job throughout the season and made more mistakes, things like that.

“Fernando was on, in Australia for, P2 or P3 in qualifying in Q3 and we were miles away. So they’ve had a better car – they have pretty much all season. So I think we’ve done a better job with the car that we’ve had this year.

“Now they’re just ironing out a few more of their problems and issues and maybe also improved the car a little bit more than we have and taken a few more steps.”

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