“We Are One of the Slowest”: Lando Norris Slaps Zak Brown & Co. With Brutal Reality Check as Complacency Begins to Set In

Over the past few race weekends, McLaren has found this pace that’s catapulted it from almost the back of the grid to fighting with Mercedes, Ferrari, and occasionally Red Bull. Owing to the flurry of upgrades it brought to the MCL60, this mid-season turnaround has been one of the most significant in Formula 1 history. While fighting for podiums would’ve been something the Woking outfit could’ve only dreamt of at the start of the season, Lando Norris achieved two consecutive second places at the British and Hungarian GP. But even with the new upgrades, there’s one thing the MCL60 still struggles with more than anyone else. Norris brought it to light and gave his team a reality check.

After the Canadian GP, when Team Principal Andrea Stella announced the upgrade package, he and CEO Zak Brown were confident it would turn McLaren’s season around. Now that it has proved effective, there were signs of complacency setting in, but Norris hasn’t let his results get to his head. Even after the upgrades were introduced, Norris repeatedly stressed how difficult the car was to drive. Even though he was getting the results McLaren wanted, he wasn’t and still isn’t too comfortable in the car.

In an interview during the Hungarian GP weekend, he talked about the shortcoming of the MCL60 despite the upgrades. He said, “A bigger step would be improving how we drive the car, how easy it is to drive the car, rather than just adding 10 more points of load in the slow-speed corners. That is only going to get us so far up the order.” Over the years, McLaren has produced cars that are great at high-speed corners but struggle with low-speed ones. According to Norris, that’s still a problem, and increasing downforce (like McLaren did in Spa) can only help them so much.

Read More: Lando Norris Exposes McLaren’s “Shocking” List of Shortcomings While Issuing a Thunderous Message to the Team: “Still a Lot of Work to Improve”

Unless McLaren changes its fundamentals, this will always be a problem. Norris added, “We are one of the slowest cars in slow-speed corners. It is just an area that has been bad for us for the last five years.” But this hasn’t been McLaren’s only problem since Norris joined in 2019.

Lando Norris feels his cars at McLaren have been Saturday cars

Before McLaren introduced its upgrade package, Norris and Oscar Piastri performed well during qualifying, regularly making it to the top 10 shootout. Although their Saturday performance used to be commendable, Sunday would bring everything back to square one. They would lose positions because of their slow race pace and high tire degradation. Per Norris, that’s another problem McLaren has faced as long as he’s been with the team.

In an interview earlier this season, Norris said, “If the balance of the car isn’t right, you pay more on Sunday than on Saturday because new tires cover so much. We’ve had this problem for five years. It’s somehow in the DNA of our cars.” While McLaren’s one-pace on new tires is good, its race pace drops considerably. He added, “We lose up to eight-tenths from the first to the second round.” Although the MCL60 has improved in that avenue, Norris knows Zak Brown & Co. still has work to do.

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Can McLaren do anything to make driving the car easier for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in slow-speed corners?