Lando Norris said Red Bull have committed a clearer breach of the rules with their bib device than anything McLaren have done.
The world champions are understood to have made changes to their car following discussions with the FIA centred on the behaviour of the ‘bib’ at the front of its floor under its nose.
Red Bull is believed to have had a device which allowed the height of the front of the floor to be altered. This could have allowed them to run the car lower to the floor in qualifying, when it is light on fuel, than in the race. Doing so could allow them to tailor the RB20’s set-up more effectively.
Norris said it was hard to judge how much they could have gained from using such a device in a year when lap times among the top four teams have often been extremely close in qualifying. Max Verstappen and George Russell set identical pole position times to within a thousandth of a second at the Canadian Grand Prix.
“It’s one thing having it on your car, it’s another thing on how much you exploit it and use it, which we have no idea [about],” said Norris in today’s FIA press conference at the Circuit of the Americas. “So, if it has been helping them, if they’ve been utilising it in a way people think they have, then maybe it will shift in our direction.
“When you talk about things like that, they’re not going to have got several pole positions or wins just because of such a device. So I don’t think it really will change anything in the scheme of things.
“But when we look at maybe certain qualifying [sessions], and we look at the gap in certain races this year when it’s been split by hundredths of a second in qualifying, or even thousandths, then you might say, okay, well maybe this helped in that direction or this direction.”
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McLaren agreed to change their car’s rear wing after rivals raised concerns over how much it flexed at high speed during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. However Norris said Red Bull’s breach of the rules was more egregious.
“I think it’s good that the FIA are doing such a thing,” he said. “There’s a difference between black and white stuff like this, and there’s a difference between [it being] Formula 1 and pushing the boundaries and creating new things and innovating within the space that you allowed to innovate.
“I think that’s what we as McLaren have done a very good job in but we’re sure not to go any further than that.”