McLaren driver Lando Norris believes he could struggle to maintain his recent strong form in Austria, with too much still missing on the straights
Lando Norris has a good record at the Red Bull Ring: He finished the two 2020 events in third and fifth; last year he equalled those results. The Briton blames this on his familiarity with the track as well as the McLaren’s strong top speed
“I think it’s a track I’ve raced at for many years. I raced here a couple of times in Formula 4, then Formula Renault, Formula 3, Formula 2,” Norris enumerates the series. “So it’s a track that I just know well, as probably most other people do.”
“One of my strengths is high-speed corners as well. It’s not so much in Turn 6, but in Turn 7, the second left-hand corner, that I can play to my strengths and we usually do a decent lap time,” the McLaren driver continues.
Norris misses top speed of previous years
“In previous years, the car was very strong in the high-speed area. We were also relatively good on the straights in previous years. And the two just come together well on this kind of track. So that’s always been a good strength. So this year we’ll have to wait and see. “
Because this year’s MCL36 is no longer as strong in either area, Norris knows. “There are still some slow corners and things like that. So we’ve still got a lot of options,” the Brit hopes, “but it might not be quite as good as in previous years.”
At the British Grand Prix, the team introduced a low-drag rear wing that could potentially come in handy in Austria. That’s because back at Silverstone, technical director James Key admitted the team was playing with the wings to get more straight-line power.
McLaren experimenting with rear wing
“I think last year the speed on the straights was an advantage for us,” Key said. “This year we are a bit slower on the straights than we would like to be. However, we now have a sufficient range of rear wings to solve the problem.”
“We want to try and improve the efficiency of the lower part of the wings and the middle part of the wing so we can improve a bit on top speed.” Norris hopes the team will be able to make just that improvement this weekend.
“There’s still a bit of a weakness,” he says. “And it’s not just the wing, there are several other things that contribute to the drag of the car. So it definitely helps. But you also have a lot of high-speed corners here.”
“Similar to Silverstone, where we had a good weekend in terms of pace, but without upgrades. And what we had at Silverstone was something very small. It wasn’t anything that really gave us more than a tenth,” Norris holds.
“I’m hoping that the car works in a similar way, that we’re decent at high speed and on the straights, so we can find a happy medium. So I wouldn’t say we’re particularly strong compared to previous years, but we’re almost there in a lot of areas. “
