“In DRS we are pretty shocking,” Lando Norris blames MCL36′ DRS system for ‘poor outing’ in Belgium
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Lando Norris
Lando Norris had a lackluster outing at the Belgian Grand Prix and has recently blamed the DRS system for the disappointing performance of the Woking-based team.
Lando Norris believes that the DRS (Drag Reduction System) on McLaren’s car is not as strong as some of the other teams and views it as a major cause of worry for his team.
Lando and Daniel finished the Belgian Grand Prix in P12 and P15 after getting stuck in a DRS train and Norris while dwelling on the same said, “I think we were probably one of the quicker ones on the straights, where we lose a lot is in DRS, for some reason in DRS we’re pretty shocking.”
“Some cars are a lot better than others like in a pure straight line condition I think yesterday we were quicker than Red Bull.”
“But then the Red Bull opens DRS and gains somehow like another 15km/h and is in a completely different league to a lot of people. So there’s something we’re maybe missing with DRS, so that makes our overtaking opportunities less than other people.”
“But straight line we were probably one of the quickest this weekend, final sector probably one of the quickest at times yesterday. But just slow speed, medium speed, high speed, nothing was a strength this weekend. We’re just a bit down in every area.”
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Lando Norris was not surprised by McLaren’s poor showing in Spa
McLaren came to Spa with the hope of overtaking Alpine in the 2022 Constructors Championship but what unfolded was pretty painful to watch for the team.
While Alpine was extremely impressive in terms of extracting performance out of the car, McLaren on the other hand, was insanely poor in that department.
Moreover, Lando Norris was not surprised with his team’s package and while stressing about it said, “I think it’s exactly as I expected.”
“I think we knew the racing was going to be a lot worse here this year than it was in previous years, just because the slipstream is so much worse.”
“But yeah, apart from that, just getting stuck behind the Aston [Of Lance Stroll], and the Williams. I think Aston’s pace was clearly better than ours today. But the Williams is just so quick in the straight, and I’m in the DRS train, and I just couldn’t do a lot. I reckon we were just where we deserved to be.”
“I think the gaps between all cars looked bigger this weekend than normal. A longer track, a lot of it’s all about efficiency here, running as low downforce as possible, but still, have a car that performs very well in all the high-speed and low-speed corners. And that’s clearly what we don’t have.”
The next race on the horizon is the Dutch Grand Prix where Norris from a personal standpoint, struggled last year. However, this time around he has hope of turning things around for himself and the team.
“High downforce, so hopefully moves us a little bit more back in line with Budapest’s kind of pace, I hope. But you never know, it was our worst track last season.”
“So I’m hoping this year it’s not the case. Because some of the problems that we had in previous years are maybe not so evident this year, and we’ve got other problems. So we’ll see. It can’t be a lot worse I hope that this weekend.“
The 23-year-old has admitted that McLaren has got quite a few problems on their hands ahead of the Dutch GP but still believes that if his team gets all its preparations right for Zandarvoot, then there would be a chance for the team to move up on the grid.
After Belgium, McLaren is now 20 points behind Alpine in the Constructors Championship and if they are to close the gap to them, then they have got no option but to put their best foot forward and try to get the maximum out of their package in Zandvoort.
Also Read: Mattia Binotto refused to speak to the media after the Belgian GP
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Rishabh Negi
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