Lando Norris isn’t concerned his car’s weakness in low speed corners might hurt his chances at this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver has taken a win and two second places from the last three grands prix. However the Monaco circuit is the slowest on the F1 calendar, and Norris admitted his MCL38 has been weaker on tight corners.
“My worst corner [at Imola] was turn 14, 15 [Variante Alta], the slowest part of the circuit,” said Norris. “That’s where I was losing most of my time. So we still have that as a weakness and we know that, we’re working on it.
“It doesn’t make me too concerned for Monaco because it’s a track where you want a good car, but you also just need to commit to everything. It’s such a fast circuit.
“It’s not like you just turn the wheel slowly, you have to commit. You have to judge how close you’re going to get to the apexes and that kind of thing. So there’s a big element of risk.
“When that comes into play, it kind of spreads out things a little bit too. So I’m not concerned. I’m excited to go to Monaco. I’m sure everyone is, because it’s so cool. At least excited for Saturday, I can’t wait.”
McLaren made significant progress with an update they introduced in Miami, and brought more new parts at Imola. Norris says they will “have a couple changes for Monaco, like I’m sure everyone does.”
“You set up the car completely differently to what you would [at Imola],” he continued. “I don’t think it correlates exactly the same.
“When we can just set the car up for slow speed, we’re better. But when you have to set it up for high-speed, medium-speed, and slow-speed, that’s when we make the most of our strengths, which is high and medium, and we take the hit in slow-speed.
“But we have some little things, and even the upgrade we had last weekend helped us a little bit move in the right direction.”
He expects to be in close competition with the same two teams again this weekend. “We’re on the right track. We’re fighting against Ferraris and Red Bulls and that’s the expectation now.”
“I think we want to do the same again, but it’s such a different track,” he added. “We need to say how we are on Friday.”
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2024 Monaco Grand Prix
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