McLaren is working on a key improvement to its car aimed at helping Lando Norris get more comfortable in nailing his qualifying efforts.
While Norris is leading the world championship after the opening two races of the season, he has not been totally happy with the MCL39 – especially when it is on the edge in single-lap runs.
His weekend in Japan has been typified by more struggles than usual to consistently get the best out of his car on each flying lap – as was seen in qualifying.
He was down in fifth after the first Q3 runs, four tenths adrift of team-mate Oscar Piastri, before he finally managed to pull off a last-gasp effort to secure second on the grid ahead of the Australian.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella concedes that Norris is lacking in one key area – and has revealed that the squad is working on a refinement over the next few races that should help address the matter.
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“We know that with Lando there's one aspect of the car that we need to improve to give him a little bit more of a natural flow when having to deliver the first lap,” said Stella.
“I think this has been now very well identified, and we plan to do some further work in the coming races to see if we can get the car to more naturally do what he expects and thinks should be possible from the car.”
Stella would not go into details of what specifically the team was working on, but indicated it was related to making it less sensitive.
“I think it has to do with the driver's input to the car, and the response of the car to this input,” he said. “At the moment, I think it's a little too sensitive.”
A braking difference
While Stella was not forthcoming in offering information on where it was trying to help, it is understood that one area Norris has suffered against Piastri is in his approach to braking – and how that impacts the car’s interaction with tyres.
Norris overlaps the braking and cornering phases on corner entry more than his team-mate.
So he is loading the front of the car more progressively and, while this can often get him the early rotation which allows him to be earlier on the power, if the corner is a long one it can promote front tyre graining.
Where there is a tendency for front graining, Norris will tend to find it earlier and more severely than Piastri.
An improvement to the braking system, to help improve his sensitivity and feel for what the car is doing, will allow him to retain the driving style that works well elsewhere.
However, it will also give him a more fine-tuned feel for the tyre’s grip through his braking foot.
Stella did explain that the area that Norris was struggling with was not something that Piastri found difficult – but that did not mean Piastri was equally at one with everything else on the car.
“I think Oscar, in relation to this specific area of the car, seems to be more comfortable,” he said.
“Oscar, he has some other aspects in which he needs to get slightly more comfortable. For instance, for him, sector one today and corner two in particular, was a little bit of a hit and miss.
“Unfortunately, he missed it in the second attempt of Q3 because the rest of the lap was just amazing.
“I have to say that the two drivers, if anything at the moment, when really trying to nail the car at the limit, have slightly different requirements in terms of what they expect naturally from the car and what they get back from the behaviour of the car.
“So from both sides of the garage, we have some opportunities to work on.”
