The troubles for McLaren were made worse by the retirement of Oscar Piastri, Norris' rookie teammate, whose F1 debut was cut short.
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According to F1 pundit and commentator Karun Chandhok, Lando Norris will be considering forcing a move to Red Bull or Ferrari after McLaren’s poor start to the 2023 Formula 1 season. As a pneumatic pressure leak forced him to pit six times and derailed his hopes of challenging for points, Norris finished last of the 17 drivers in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. The troubles for McLaren were made worse by the retirement of Oscar Piastri, Norris’ rookie teammate, whose F1 debut was cut short after just 14 laps due to electrical problems.
“I tell you who will be thinking about a move to Ferrari or Red Bull though, is young Lando Norris,” Chandhok said as per Sky Sports. “Looking at where they’re [McLaren] at, and we were talking before the season of McLaren locking him in and Zak [Brown] doing an amazing job of contracting him [Norris] in for that four-year period. I do wonder, and if they’re smart they would have created some sort of exit clauses.”
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“For example, McLaren don’t finish in the top four of the Constructors’ Championship two years in a row, is there an option for Lando to look elsewhere?” the Indian driver added. “Because outside of the traditional top three teams, you’ve got Fernando [Alonso] and Lando who are your top two drivers on the grid aren’t they? And the fact he [Norris] is fighting to even get a car into Q3, there’s got to be a bit of frustration there I would imagine.”
In his AlphaTauri debut, Nyck de Vries took P14, dropping Nico Hulkenberg to 15th with a five-second time penalty. Alfa Romeo’s Zhou was ranked 16th, and Lando Norris struggled in the race after making a sluggish pit stop, which caused him to fall down the leaderboard. The McLaren driver finished third in the standings after a final-lap pit stop for soft tyres. Esteban Ocon had a disastrous opening race for Alpine, receiving a five-second penalty for incorrectly lining up on the grid, a further 10-second penalty for incorrectly serving that penalty, and a further five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Alpine made the late decision to retire him.
Valtteri Bottas finished a strong eighth for Alfa Romeo by taking advantage of his competitors’ shaky starts, while Pierre Gasly came from P20 for Alpine and finished ninth after three pit stops. After a strong start, Alex Albon finished 10th for Williams, and Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri just missed out on the final point. While Zhou Guanyu, driving for Alfa Romeo, pitted on the penultimate lap of the race to move Kevin Magnussen, whose hard-hard-soft gambit didn’t result in points, up to P13, rookie Logan Sargeant battled with him for 12th place on his debut.
