Lando Norris rejected claims McLaren performed poorly in the Las Vegas Grand Prix because they were not able to use a rear wing design they raced earlier in the season.
McLaren and other teams agreed to change the designs of their rear wings following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The MCL38’s rear wing deformed noticeably when the cars reached top speed on the long straights at the Baku City Circuit.
Oscar Piastri won for McLaren in Azerbaijan, while Norris climbed from 15th on the grid to finish fourth. But the team was much less competitive in Las Vegas, on a track which also features several long straights. Norris finished sixth, one place ahead of the team’s other car.
He dismissed the claim McLaren’s performance was linked to the change in their rear wing profiles since the Baku race in September.
“No, everyone wants to say whatever they want, but they can all believe their own BS that they tell themselves,” he told Sky. “It made a very small amount of difference, a lot less than what everyone thinks.
“It gained us a lot less than what everyone thinks. It’s got nothing to do with that.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the team improved its pace during the race by making a drastic change to how Norris and his car treated its tyres in the final stint. Norris’ lap times improved considerably at that point, but by then he had fallen too far behind the leaders to catch them. He was able to build up enough of a gap to pit for a fresh set of soft tyres and set the fastest lap of the race.
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Piastri described the race as “very difficult” after finishing 51 seconds behind winner George Russell, including his five-second penalty for a false start.
“We just struggled with the tyres so there’s definitely some things to look at,” he said. “I don’t think we hoped for a whole lot more than where we finished, but obviously the gap was a bit disappointing.”
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2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix
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