The difficulties of Lando Norris to correctly grasp the driving behavior of the 2025-McLaren at the absolute limit (especially in Q3) run through the first half of the season as a recurring topic. He has to go to his limits to keep up with team-mate Oscar Piatri, who has been one of the outstanding drivers so far and drives Norris away in the World Cup ranking.
Very early on, Norris noticed that this year’s car gives him significantly less feedback on the steering wheel and the various degrees of freedom, which makes it difficult for him to take the curves at the limit in qualifying – in technical jars one speaks of “cueing”.
This “deafness” on the front axle is a general peculiarity of the MCL39, which also perceived Piatri – albeit to a lesser extent. So the Australian told the team in Miami that he was difficult to repeat his best qualifying round because he did not know exactly how he could get it at all.
Nevertheless, Piatri has been able to cope much better than Norris so far and has already fetched four pole positions – Norris only two.
To solve a problem, you first have to understand its causes. While it is relatively easy to give a car more downforce, mechanical problems are much more difficult to fix – especially because they are difficult to reproduce virtually. The peculiarities of the MCL39 primarily concerned Norris, which also made the topic more subjective.
Between Saudi Arabia and Miami in April, Norris spent a lot of time in the simulator in Woking to better understand where the lack of feedback on the front axle stems from. Since then, McLaren has been working in gradual, fine adjustments – this finally flows into a revised geometry of the front wheel suspension, which Norris successfully tested during the Canada weekend.
To protect intellectual ownership, McLaren is holding back with details. Technical chief Neil Houdey, however, explained the procedure to the media in the run-up to the Austria end of the media how to bring Norris back into harmony by car:
“It was just about feeling the tires at the limit better,” says Hoally. “We have made some small kinematic changes that we know better. I think we now have a good understanding of what it needs and were able to achieve small improvements in several areas that have already helped him in the past races – and will also help.”
“We did not expect a great increase in performance, but only checked whether Lando had no negative feedback on the changes. And since that was not the case, we took it over.”
Avoid falling
However, the way there was not easy. McLaren initially found that the proposed changes for Norris could also bring certain disadvantages and compromises. You didn’t want to risk the currently powerful car, just to better coordinate the front axle.
However, further tests gave the team enough certainty that this would not be the case – the new suspension is now firmly planned. Piatri will probably stay with the original version.
“We initially had concerns in one area. There were some smaller disadvantages that we did not necessarily want to introduce at the beginning of the season,” said Houldey. “However, early use gave us the confidence that this will not be a problem – so we were able to implement the change without worry.”
“As with everything, we are looking for the best compromise from different scenarios. It was no different with the suspension. You compare different approaches to achieve the best possible performance, and for Lando we believe that we have now found it.”
In Austria, McLaren brought other parts around the front area to the car, including new cladding of the front wheel suspension. These serve purely aerodynamic purposes and work with both suspension versions. Both drivers are to be equipped with the latest specification from Saturday.
Front section not just to blame for Norris’ mistakes
On Thursday, Norris admitted that the number of his mistakes compared to Piatri – including the collision with the Australian in Canada – is currently the biggest difference between the two. And it is precisely this difference that could be the decisive factor in the World Cup fight.
Even if Norris has now put more confidence in the car through teamwork and changes, he openly admitted that his mistakes are not solely due to the problems with the front axle.
In Montreal, Norris had to start seventh after chaotic qualifying – his weak Q3 performance was due to the fact that he wanted too much and went beyond the limit.
In Austria, however, he was optimistic that he could reduce the gap of 22 points to Piatri.
“The suspension is more used to give me a better feeling than to get more performance out of the car. But maybe a better feeling can lead to more performance,” he said on Thursday.
“This is definitely an area in which I have to improve and we are currently working very intensively on it. And if there is any route on which I can get the best feeling, then it is probably here.”
“From a personal perspective and from a team perspective – with regard to the further development of the car and on what I have to improve – this is definitely a good opportunity.”