Something rather important happened for McLaren and Lando Norris at the end of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. That’s in addition to mathematically losing the world championship to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, which had really gone in the wild Brazilian wetness and the Dutchman’s brilliance there.
This was how Norris lifted his pace on his second set of hard tyres. His delta tracks remarkably close with the stint that Lewis Hamilton produced to such acclaim when behind George Russell as the race’s end approached.
Finally, Norris had got the MCL38 working around its tendency to be “killing the fronts” on low-downforce tracks. He did this by pushing the tyres harder from earlier and at times bullying in oversteer to try and reach the critical tyre temperature window he’d generally not been in before this point.
His out-lap speed compared to his first was almost a second quicker, with the need to treat the rubber gently here even more urgent given the graining severity on the cool surface. He also ignored a McLaren differential settings adjustment around the wind picking up as the stint wore on.
This was cut short by McLaren pitting Norris for softs to successfully chase the fastest lap point. That could yet be critical in its constructors’ fight against Ferrari come the Abu Dhabi finale in two weeks’ time.
“We spent two stints just graining front tyres, and at the third stint, Lando tried something extreme,” explained McLaren team boss Andrea Stella. “And it worked!”
Norris found a breakthrough on his final hard tyre stint during the Las Vegas GP
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Stella insisted this was an example of Norris’s progress through 2024. That he developed to be “not only more aware, but more capable of using his skills or developing new skills” – per the Italian.
Helping McLaren shed its occasionally severe graining issue when such circumstances arise – something Norris feels has plagued the team’s packages ever since he joined the grid back in 2019 – will be critical in the expected 2025 multi-team title battle.
Not spending the first quarter of that season as what he called the fourth best team and instead having “a car we think we can win a championship with from round one” would avoid the uphill slog he faced once McLaren had upgraded its MCL38 into victory contention in May’s Miami round this year.
“I’m very proud of how rapidly Lando is picking up from…
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