Photo credits: McLaren F1
As we get closer to the first half of the season teams are eager to extract the most out of the cars and are ready to bring in quite significant upgrades.
It is the case for McLaren who brought to Spielberg a highly revised version of the MCL60: new floor, new sidepods and new bodywork.
And Lando Norris certainly understood how to get the most out of these upgrades, putting his car up in P4 – only 0.077s behind Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari.
“I’m super happy, the guys did a very good job to get all the bits here this weekend and it’s paid off straightaway,” he told Sky Sports F1 at the end of quali.
“A very good day, from start to finish. We had a few issues this morning, which meant we were even more limited on running. To get, let’s call it a new car, working as it should, the guys did a very good job.”
A great step forward in what had appeared to be so far a disastrous season for McLaren, that comes in Austria – right where he stepped on a F1 podium for the very first time back in 2020.
Not a coincidence, rather a matter of finding the Spielberg circuit tailored for his way of driving.
“It just suits my driving style pretty well. My strongest point is high-speed corners. Against every driver I’ve been team-mates with, it has been my strongest suit – against Carlos and Daniel,” he explained.
“You have got three big braking zones and four high-speed corners here, so it’s a track that suits me well and I’m comfortable to push. It’s my most successful track, I love it.”
Indeed a boost of confidence for McLaren to look forward to the next races with hopes of climbing a bit up throught the midfield.
Nonetheless “as a driver I’m complaining because I could have been P3 but I made a little mistake,” remarked Norris.
“It’s difficult to commit at the last corner. It’s very tricky because you are kind of on the entry kerb, which makes the car very nervous and I just missed the apex by a little bit. As it compresses, if you miss it, you understeer badly.”
“I thought I did track limits and I just had to back out of it. So it definitely cost me P3, which I’m a bit annoyed by because I would have loved to beat Carlos, but happy with P4.”
Not quite the same start to this Austrian weekend for his teammate Oscar Piastri, who will have to wait until the next race in Silverstone to try out the upgrades on his car.
P13 for him on Sunday’s grid, not for the performance of the car but rather for the messy track limits as he – along with many other drivers – had his lap-time deleted.
“At Turn 9, I just hit the apex kerb and it just bounced me a couple centimeters too wide.
Shame to be out, pace was looking strong for both cars – which was encouraging, ” commented the Australian.
“Getting into Q3 was a good effort. Lando’s updates look like they are doing what they are supposed to, so I’m excited for the whole team and excited to have them on my car for next weekend as well.”
Looking forward to trying out the revised car, but for now eyes are set on the second qualifying of the weekend, for Saturday’s Sprint.
“It’s tricky around here [with track limits]. We still got tomorrow, points are at bay tomorrow, which makes life even trickier to get in the points in the afternoon.”
“But it’s always nice to have more qualifying laps and have more goes at it, so we’ll try our best, see how the weather goes and hopefully we’ll stay within the track limits.”
