McLaren was undoubtedly the biggest disappointment of Friday at the Chinese Grand Prix. After dominating last week in Melbourne and shining in the sole free practice session, Lando Norris seemed the favorite for Sprint pole. Instead, the championship leader ended up as the biggest flop of Sprint Qualifying, managing only the sixth-fastest time, which will see him start from the third row.
A position that makes a strong result difficult in a race of just 19 laps. However, the biggest issue may not even be this, but rather that Norris continues to talk about an MCL39 that, in his view, is too difficult to drive. This, in turn, leads him to push too hard and make mistakes.
“I made a mistake, I locked up in the last corner. But now we’re struggling a bit more. We’re simply not fast enough. I’m struggling, but it’s more my fault than the car’s. I can’t make the car perfect, but I tried to push a bit too much. I need to take a step back and try not to overdo it,” said Norris.
“I think the car is still good and in a good window, though maybe not good enough for pole. But we should definitely be further up. Our struggles were much more evident today. I made too many mistakes; it’s a very difficult car to drive,” he added.
According to the Briton, another factor that made his car even more unpredictable was the wind, especially tailwinds. This was something he had already noticed during pre-season testing and that Woking’s engineers will need to address.
“I think throughout the day, we had some front-end locking issues and struggled a lot in the last corner with the tailwind. I’d say we are much more in line with what we saw during testing in Bahrain. There was just a lot of wind, and when it’s strong, we struggle more. This applies to both me and Oscar, although I clearly struggled more than him. So yes, we pushed a bit more to try and compensate for not being fast enough.”
Oscar Piastri points to strategy
He won’t be celebrating either, but Oscar Piastri at least managed to limit the damage, as he will start third in the Sprint. The Australian is not particularly satisfied, but he believes the issue isn’t so much the MCL39 itself as the strategy used in SQ3, since McLaren was the only team to attempt two runs. A choice that clearly did not pay off.
“I think, unfortunately, we were fast at the wrong moments. SQ1 and SQ2 were good, but in SQ3, we did something different, going out much earlier and trying for two laps. In the end, I don’t think it was the best decision, but it’s something we need to assess. I still believe our car’s pace is very strong, and I’m confident I can fight from third place,” said Piastri, trying to remain optimistic for tomorrow’s Sprint.
While Norris focused on tailwind issues, Piastri instead highlighted the extremely high grip level of the new asphalt on the Chinese track, which, paradoxically, made things more difficult for him.
“It was tough also because of the asphalt, which has a lot of grip, I think. It’s very ‘sticky,’ and it was quite difficult to keep the car under control all day. Honestly, I think we did a good job of ‘taming’ the track in Sprint Qualifying, but maybe we got the strategy a bit wrong. It was interesting because the grip improved a lot compared to last year, which is a positive, and I think we can improve a few things for tomorrow,” he concluded.
Leave a Reply