Lando Norris believes the extremely high-drag nature of the Monaco circuit will mitigate the Woking-based Formula 1 outfit’s weakness through slow corners, claiming it’s “not as far-fetched” as in other circuits.
The MCL38 is highly capable through high-speed cornering, but slower corners have proved to be the McLaren charger’s Achilles heel.
Norris himself told media in Monaco on Thursday “It’s still our biggest weakness. Even if you look to Imola, look at like Turn 7, the chicane, it’s still one of our worst corners.”
Despite this, because Monaco encourages a set-up for only slow corners and nothing else, it can help McLaren maintain a balanced approach.
“Monaco, you set up only for slow speed, nothing else, and I think that’s where maybe it plays a little bit more back into our hands, or not our hands, but it’s just not as far-fetched as what it is in some other circuits,” Norris said.
“Last year was not our best year in terms of delivering here in Monaco, but we’ve not been bad here in the past.
“We’ve clearly improved a lot since then. We didn’t have our upgrade here last year, so a lot of things have improved since then.
“We’ve definitely improved slow speed as well. So I’m hopeful that it can be a good weekend.
McLaren has vaulted itself from challenging amongst the best of the rest to simply being a bonafide challenger to Red Bull in recent weeks
Norris finished second in China, grabbed a long-awaited maiden win in Miami and ran Max Verstappen close at Imola.
Qualifying has remained incredibly tight between Red Bull and McLaren throughout the last few Grands Prix, with Ferrari also proving to be a close match in the fight at the front.
Less than a tenth of a second separated Verstappen and Norris at Emilia Romagna and with qualifying of paramount importance at Monaco, the McLaren ace is “hopeful” the team can perform well especially since Norris described the race as “one you always want to tick off at some point.”
But despite being “a lot more competitive in terms of fighting against Ferrari and fighting against Red Bull,” Norris is cautious of Monaco springing a surprise.
“Because [Monaco’s] so different, you can easily go one way or the other,” he said.
“You know, it can easily look really good for us or it might just be that [the others] have some tricky weekend or something. So I think everything is still to play for.
“And it’s such a small track. You can easily say all the teams are going to be up there as well.
“You know, whether you’re going to have Mercedes back up there and Aston [Martin] a bit more back up there.
“Especially in qualifying, you make a one-tenth, two-tenth mistake, that’s a big loss around here.
“So, it’s interesting to keep focused and it’s still close. So, we’re just concentrating on doing our job because we’ve been doing a good job so far.”
