McLaren pinpoints reason behind Lando Norris’ ‘worst nightmare’ at Chinese GP
Andrea Stella revealed that Lando Norris had a critical failure in the car that caused the Chinese GP to be a 'nightmare' for him.
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Lando Norris (via RacingNews365)
Lando Norris put forth a decent performance at the Chinese GP after finishing as runner-up behind teammate Oscar Piastri. Norris remained critical of the MCL39 chassis over the race weekend due to multiple issues with the car. Despite the apparent problems in the car, the Briton put forth a great turnaround in performance from the Sprint sessions. Now, McLaren’s boss, Andrea Stella, revealed the underlying issue in the 25-year-old’s car that caused him to perform poorly.
Lando Norris couldn’t amass any impressive results in the sprint race after finishing in P8. The Briton remained critical of the car and claimed that it didn’t suit his driving style. Norris even coined the issues in his car as his ‘worst nightmare’ that rendered him unable to fight for the race win. The 25-year-old’s car suffered from a technical failure during the final stages which caused him to abandon his chase for victory against Oscar Piastri.
Andrea Stella revealed that McLaren was aware of the issues but couldn’t reveal them to the public due to Intellectual Property (IP) reasons. However, the team boss highlighted that there was a leak in one of the fundamental components of the car. Stella insisted that the main issue wasn’t with the brake line but it inadvertently affected the braking of the car. As such, Norris had to limit the peak break pressure heading into the corner to remain within the safe limit of the tracks.
We understand what the problem is, which I can’t disclose for IP reasons. But fundamentally, it had to do with a leak in one of the components, not in the brake line, but somewhere else, and the main action required was to limit the peak brake pressure.
Andrea Stella said, as reported by RacingNews365.com
Stella pointed out that Norris could apply the brakes to the car but could do so very gently. This meant that a usual 100-metre braking zone increased drastically and he had to break 300 meters before the braking zone. The Team Principal pointed out that the Briton had to coast to a certain speed before the turn and could only then apply very gentle brake pressure that caused him to lose precious time on corners.
You could brake, but very, very gently. So what was 100-metre braking, became 200 metres, and towards the end, it was 300 metres because Lando needed to lift the throttle, coast to a certain speed and then apply very gentle brake pressure.
Andrea Stella added
Lando Norris reveals McLaren ‘hid’ the problem from him at the Chinese GP
Lando Norris was aware that some problems in the car caused him issues with braking. However, the team decided to contain information about the issues so as to not panic the 25-year-old. Due to this, Norris could focus purely on performing well in the race and not worry about other entities out of his control. The strategy seemed to work as the Briton finished in P2 in the main race, just around 10s behind Oscar Piastri.
Norris pointed out that the brakes in his car started to wear off quite early on in the race. The 25-year-old expected them to still work as intended and be used for a tiny bit longer. However, as depicted by the problems, the issues started to seem more exaggerated towards the end. Due to this, the Briton believed that McLaren withheld the information from him as they were aware of the issue being more serious towards the end.
I think they started to go quite early. But you always get a bit of a tendency for the brakes to get a tiny bit longer. I think the team was hiding it from me because they saw the problem starting a lot earlier and they knew it was going to be a problem.
Lando Norris said, as reported by GPblog
Lando Norris claims he is ‘lucky’ to even finish the Chinese GP following the issues
The braking issues could’ve been more critical if they started even earlier on in the race. Despite Lando Norris facing problems heading into a corner, he managed to keep George Russell at bay with a huge gap. Russell trailed the runner-up with a gap of over 11s which further showcased how well Norris managed to contain the problems in his car.
Despite impressively finishing P2 in a broken car, Norris reckoned that he was ‘lucky’ to even finish the race in the end and finish ahead of Russell. The 25-year-old pointed out that he was around three to four seconds off the pace towards the final stages of the race. Hence, the Briton asserts that he had a difficult ending to the Chinese GP and couldn’t quite contend for the race win against Piastri. Still, he remains confident in his team and hopes for such issues to never come up again in the future.
So we were lucky simply to finish the race and still to finish ahead of George. I think the last couple laps were 3 or 4 seconds or more off. So we had a difficult ending and I would have loved to have pushed a little bit more and tried to give Oscar a bit of a run, but not today. So something we need to understand and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Lando Norris noted
McLaren still remains clearly the car to beat for the rivals in the final year of the ground-effect era. Woking leads the constructors’ championship after scoring 78 points in two races. Hence, time will tell about how the British team copes against the ever-growing pace of the rivals. Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull hope to reignite the championship battle in the latter stages of the season and put forth a great spectacle for the fans.
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