Lando Norris calls McLaren’s hard tire choice at Belgian GP ‘terrible’

Despite an early strategic blunder, McLaren managed to salvage Lando Norris’ Belgian GP.

Lando Norris calls McLaren’s hard tire choice at Belgian GP ‘terrible’

Lando Norris (Image credit: Sky Sports)

McLaren’s higher-downforce setup for the race, anticipating rain’s return after heavy impacts on Friday and Saturday. A brief rain shower during the race let MCL60 improve. Lando Norris clinched P7, benefiting from a successful undercut with a mid-race soft tire change. Despite the result, the Brit admitted that McLaren needed to try something out of the box to salvage his race.

In his conversation with the media, Norris explained McLaren‘s decision to try a different approach, opting for the Hard tires. Unfortunately, their choice proved to be worse, as nobody had used the Hard tires all weekend given the sprint weekend schedule. Despite their belief that it might work well for them, the outcome was still disappointing. Lando expressed that the limited laps didn’t allow the tires to reach their optimal performance, resulting in him getting overtaken.

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“We had to try something, and we went on to the Hard, but it was even worse,” Norris told media including RacingNews365. “No one used the Hard all weekend, we thought it normally kind of suits us so I think it was the right decision to try, but it was still terrible. I just didn’t have enough laps to get in the tyres.”

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Also read: Andrea Stella admits Belgian GP has exposed McLaren’s flaws

Lando Norris urges re-evaluation of McLaren’s approach at Spa-Francorchamps

Lando Norris at the 2923 Belgian GP (Image credit: Formula1News)

The Brit tumbled from seventh on the grid as cars overtook him on Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix. McLaren opted for a high-downforce rear wing on his car at the Belgian circuit, due to the underdeveloped low-drag package. While it helped in wet conditions, other choices might have been better for Sunday’s race, potentially hindering qualifying and the wet sprint.

In the same interview Lando Norris mentioned that being stuck behind one car prevented him from pushing in the middle sector, leading to multiple overtakings. Switching to Softs improved his position, but he was surprised to finish seventh. He felt like he was last most of the time, urging a reevaluation of their approach, especially for different circuits like Spa.

“I got put behind one car so I couldn’t push in the middle sector again and got overtaken two or three more times. We just need to rethink how we approach the weekend with the wing level and stuff like this,” said Lando Norris. “It might work on one, but it doesn’t work on all of them, and we clearly got it wrong this weekend.”

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