McLaren made big changes to their MCL38 car for the Miami race this weekend. They updated many parts to improve how the car sticks to the track.
But even though there were moments where the car looked fast during the weekend, McLaren didn’t do as well as they hoped.
Lando Norris, the McLaren driver, had a messy lap in one of the qualifying sessions and ended up ninth in the sprint race. Then, in the main qualifying, he finished fifth behind Red Bull and Ferrari. He couldn’t get the best out of the soft tires and even tried using the medium ones.
This weekend, managing the temperature of the tires was really important for doing well. Norris thinks it’s been hard to tell how much the car has improved because of these conditions. Plus, the Miami track doesn’t really show off the areas where the changes are supposed to help the most.
Norris said, “The changes are working like we expected, but this track doesn’t really let us see everything the car can do.”
He hopes they’ll see more of what the car can do in the next races, like in Imola. He thinks the changes McLaren made are a step in the right direction.
But Norris also thinks it’ll take a few more races to really understand how much the new changes have helped McLaren. He says people shouldn’t judge too quickly based on just one race or session. It’s important to see how the car does in different conditions over a few races before deciding if the changes were good or not.
