Norris weighs in on Mercedes customer engine debate: 'We need to do a better job'

Lando Norris says McLaren has to "figure out for ourselves" how to optimise its Mercedes Formula 1 power unit, following concerns in Australia from its customer teams.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella made it clear in Melbourne that McLaren still has much to learn about how to harvest and deploy energy, stressing that Mercedes is a step ahead compared to its customers.

However, Lando Norris doesn’t want to put any blame on Mercedes' High Performance Powertrains and the Brixworth engineers that are embedded in the McLaren camp.

He conceded that he didn’t know what a PU supplier is obliged by the FIA to tell its customer teams.

“We always do that,” he said when asked by Crash.net if McLaren would try to work even more closely with them. “We’ve worked very closely [with HPP] and they’ve helped us win the last couple of world championships together.

“It’s certainly not like that’s not the case already. It’s just early on in the season, there are a lot of things to try to figure out and understand, and it’s just that it’s not told.

"Certain things don’t need to be told, because you always try to create your own advantages. But at the same time, there are certain things we’re having to figure out for ourselves.

“I don’t know what the rules are and what has to be said and what not, that’s down to Andrea and the rest of the team.

"But we’ve always worked closely. And we’ll continue to do it. As much as he [Stella] said some of these things, there were a lot of things we just didn’t explore and maximise ourselves.

“So that’s kind of irrelevant at the same time, that if we just do a better job ourselves and maximised it and figured out more earlier, we would just do better anyway.”

He did acknowledge that Mercedes benefited from having the latest spec PU in testing, when its customers didn’t, so McLaren was "always going to start on the back foot".

“The fact we didn’t have the newer power unit at an earlier point meant that we were always going to be on the back foot compared to a team that is performing extremely well and just more prepared than we are able to be.

"I guess we just want to be able to be more prepared, and that’s the main thing we’ve asked for.”

McLaren yet to understand its car as it gets on top of power unit learning

Despite Mercedes' 50-second advantage over Norris and McLaren at the chequered flag in Australia, the reigning champion is confident this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix will see a narrower performance gap.

“I hope, but I also expect it to be a bit closer,” he said.

“I think also Melbourne was one of the trickiest tracks of the season, we expect, from the power unit point of view and lifting and coasting. There’s a lot of factors at play from that side of things.

"There’s less of that here, so it should be a little bit simpler, and therefore we probably expect to be a bit closer.

“Even if we were to go back to Melbourne now, I think we would expect to be closer anyway, from what we’ve understood and been able to learn and figure out.

“But at the same time, we know we have to improve in all areas. It’s not just the power unit. The car itself, it’s decent, we’re in a good starting position, but we still want it to be better than what it is currently.

“The car is maybe more longer term stuff. But from the power unit point of view we expect to be closer and up to the performance of Mercedes, which is just a very high level.

“They are doing better than anyone, including us. There’s a lot that is down to us doing a better job at the same time. So we expect to do that this weekend.”

Norris admitted that the focus on the PU is such that he doesn’t yet have a proper overview of the chassis package McLaren has deployed this season.

“It’s still very early to say to be honest,” he said.

“It’s quite different. You don’t drive the cars in the same way. You’re driving the power unit; you’re not driving the car to the same limit. It’s not like you give it to a driver and say, ‘Go and drive the car in the quickest way possible’. That’s not how it works.

“So it’s a very, very different style of driving that’s needed. Basically, it’s forget everything you’ve done, and reset.

"Therefore it’s too early to say from my side. I’m still trying to figure out how to drive the car and the power unit and put everything together. At the minute that’s a question for later in the year."