Lando Norris is utilizing a new floor upgrade during the race weekend in Mexico – McLaren aims to continue developing the car in the final stages of the season. However, this latest modification has so far yielded little. Norris lamented a mediocre second free practice, in which he had to concede to teammate Oscar Piastri with an upgraded MCL38.
During the first free practice, Lando Norris was on the bench; IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward took his place in the car to fulfill the rookie obligations. In the second free practice, Norris himself got to experience whether the floor upgrade could give him an advantage over the competition. The Englishman finished in fifth place in a session that he himself described as ‘not great’.
‘Not a Good Feeling’
“It’s good that we can compare the cars a bit, but so far it’s really not much better,” Norris said afterwards about the new floor. Oscar Piastri, who was still driving with the old setup, was almost a tenth faster and clocked the second time. “Oscar (Piastri) was very fast today,” Norris confirmed. “I was just a bit off, I think. So, I still have some work to do. We’ll see how it turns out.”
With a deficit of fifty-seven points on championship leader Max Verstappen, the GP of Mexico is crucial for Norris. The 24-year-old driver will have to make up a lot of points on his Dutch competitor if he wants to compete for the title. However, he still has his doubts about the race at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. “It didn’t go great,” Norris sighed. “I just don’t have a good feeling about it, also because there is so little grip on this track.”
