Lando Norris hopeful McLaren has found fix for mystery F1 car speed loss

Lando Norris is hopeful McLaren has found a fix for the baffling speed loss that has affected his Formula 1 car in recent races. 

The reigning world champion struggled for pace in both Azerbaijan and Malaysia, only managing to qualify fifth at each round. Norris was wiped out in a multi-car crash in Baku and finished a lowly ninth after making a late mistake at the Bahrain Grand Prix. 

Norris, who has taken two victories this season, claimed his McLaren was suffering from a “painful” straight-line speed deficit that is costing him around two-tenths of a second per lap. 

Ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, Norris suggested that McLaren has made progress in discovering the cause of the puzzling issue. 

“There was a fair few [learnings] both from my side, from us as a team from like what happened in the race, but also just general things from a car point of view and what we need to do a better job in, and how can we get back to the same level as we were in the previous few - Budapest, Zandvoort, Madrid,” Norris said in Thursday’s pre-event driver press conference. 

“The team have been working very hard, we've all worked very hard to understand what we could learn from last weekend, what we can and need to do better in. The exact things, the specifics of it, I don't need to go into, but there was a good amount. 

“There was some obvious ones, such as the straight-line speed and the issues I've been having with the car, which are obvious ones, and obviously more technical ones from, how can we unlock more potential from the car to get back to the performance that we had previously. 

“So that's a tricky one to do. But there was a lot of stuff and the team have been pretty flat out, so that's a good thing.” 

Norris said it was clear the problem was more apparent due to the certain characteristics at recent circuit layouts. With Singapore placing slightly less emphasis on straight-line speed performance, the Briton hopes to have a better weekend. 

“Well Baku we weren't necessarily too quick either, so I wouldn't say just a Malaysia thing. There's, there's certainly some aspects of Malaysia with the roughness of the tarmac that we think does play a part,” he explained. 

“It’s a good thing for us to see this weekend if some of the performance that we were missing there does come back. Singapore's a track I've enjoyed and we've been pretty good here over the last few years. 

“Certainly a little bit of it is track layout and the last couple tracks have not been to the same strengths as what we've seen in Madrid and some of the other races. But all in all, we've still been underperforming to the level we need to and we want to be. So we still need to do a better job no matter what.” 

When asked if he is hopeful McLaren has found a cure for the issues affecting his MCL40, Norris replied: “Yeah, hopeful. Need to get on track first and see how much better it is. 

“It's obviously also a circuit where straight lines are not like the highest priority and not as detrimental as the last few weekends. Nevertheless, you always want to go down the straights as quick as, as what you should be able to, and it's always tough when you come out of corners better and end up going slower. 

“It's been a frustrating two weekends trying to figure out what the issue's been and why there's just been a constant lack of straight-line speed and performance. 

“Especially in this kind of battle we've been in the last two qualifyings, it's been two or three positions. So it's cost me quite a lot. At the same time, there's obviously things I can do better as well, but confident that the team have done a good job. They put a lot of work into trying to figure out things, and hopeful it'll be better this weekend, but honestly have to get out on track and, and see first.”