12/07/2025 14:35
Lando Norris has rejected the idea that McLaren's new front
suspension is behind his recent strong form in the F1 title race.
Since the start of the season, Norris has complained of a lack of
feeling from the front of the MCL39, as team-mate Oscar Piastri won
four of the first six races to seize control of the title race.
However, stretching back to Monaco, Norris has now won three of the
last five grands prix to reduce Piastri's lead in the standings to
just eight points at the halfway stage of the season. In Canada,
McLaren introduced a new front suspension, which only Norris is
running as Piastri does not believe it is yielding performance,
with the Briton using it to record back-to-back wins for the first
time in his career in Austria and Britain, albeit aided by
Piastri's 10-second penalty at Silverstone. Addressing the
difference in specifications of the MCL39s, Norris believes that
"people talk about it too much," as he explained how his mental
work was more important to his upturn in form. "It could be worse.
It could have made it… people talk about it probably too much,"
Norris explained to media, including RacingNews365. "That's just
my honest opinion. It could be that it's helping me, and when I say
helping, it's helping me by hundredths, thousandths, I don't know.
It's impossible to numerically put a number on it. "It's something
the team believed might give me more feeling, and I just roll with
that, my faith in the team and my belief in them thinking this
might help, it is not a guarantee, but it might. "Yes, I won two
races since. I was really quick in Canada, but I'm not going to say
it's down to that, obviously. I want to put more of it down to my
hard work, my work I've been doing away from the track, with my
team, with many people that I have around me. "I put it way more
down to that than some alterations on the suspension. "Hopefully,
one day we get to back-to-back test it and I might get a feeling, I
might not. My feelings have been good over the last few races, but
I think more of that's come from just my working on trying to get
better feelings and maximising lack of feelings in certain areas
more than it has been by so many improvements from a car point of
view. "But we've improved the car. We've had upgrades last weekend,
and that helps. We won by 30 seconds, we won by 20 seconds in
Austria, so the car's pretty damn good. "I want to put it more
down to my hard work rather than that, but it's a combination of
both."
