Lando Norris has said that McLaren‘s upgrade package is targeting performance in the slow-speed corners ahead of Formula 1‘s 2023 Singapore Grand Prix.
The team has performed well throughout the medium and high speed corners since their Austrian GP upgrade, but they’re still behind their rivals in the slower speed corners which harms them at tracks that emphasise them.
McLaren‘s upgrades in Spielberg transformed the car, which was struggling to get points, into an instant front runner but whilst he’s excited, the British driver doesn’t want to say how good the new developments will be yet.
“It gives me more hope that if we can just put on the car and it and it works,” Norris told the press. “But it’s also a bit more slower-speed biased, which is a bit different to what we’ve had in Austria.
“So I think that’s why we’re probably a little bit more cautious on saying how big of a step or how much it’s going to help, because it’s been a bit easier for us to load in that kind of medium-to-high- speed corners, and less so in a very slow-speed.
“But this is our first time we’ve been able to read try to target that a bit more, so we’ll see.”
Two part development
The upgrade is one of a two-part development for the Woking team, with the next step due to come at the Japanese GP.
Singapore features a lot of slow-speed corners due to the tight walls and heavy braking required, which will be a welcome development for the team due to the value of track position.
Norris gave more information about how the package should help the MCL-60 behave.
“It should just hope helping a little bit of overall load,” Norris continued. “The cornering speeds and just kind of consistency, tyre wear, traction, things like that.
“But maybe not so much specifically with it allowing me to kind of drive the car bit more in a way that I want, I would say.”
