When McLaren sent its plans to the FIA, they said they had changed almost every part of Lando Norris’s car.
Before, the team had hinted that they were trying to fix a problem with speed in slow places. But really, they wanted to make the car have more force pushing it down.
In F1, not all forces pushing down are the same. The real trick is to have as much force as possible without slowing the car down too much.
You could put a huge wing on the back of the car to push it down in corners, but then it wouldn’t go fast on the straight parts of the track.
McLaren’s changes did two things: they made the car better in corners, so they could use a smaller wing and go faster on the straights too. It was like having the best of both worlds.
The boss of McLaren’s team, Andrea Stella, said they focused on making the car have more force pushing it down without making it slower.
So instead of being slower on the straights like before, McLaren was keeping up with the other teams better now.
Stella said, “We decided to use a smaller wing on purpose. We could do that because we made the car have more force pushing it down in other ways. This meant we didn’t need as big of a wing, which isn’t very good for speed.”
The changes McLaren made to the car also meant they set it up differently than usual.
Instead of being really good in fast corners, they made it better for the slow parts of the track.
Stella said, “We chose to set up the car to be best in slow corners. We didn’t just do this because of the changes we made to the car, but also because of how we set it up.”
Miami was just the beginning. There are more changes coming that will help McLaren be even better in slow corners.
Stella said, “The upgrades we have planned will help us be even better in slow corners.”
Even before Norris won the race in Miami, it was clear that McLaren’s changes were making a difference.
Norris said, “I felt good about the changes from Friday. I felt confident all weekend. A lot of Sundays lately have been good, but today was even better.”
Now, McLaren needs to see if their changes make them a real threat to the other top teams or if Miami was just lucky.
