Norris: McLaren facing two ‘very tough weekends’

Lando Norris has warned that McLaren could find itself on the back foot in Mexico City and next week in Brazil, as team papaya visits two tracks that he believes will be “very tough” on its MCL60.

Norris claimed in Austin last week his fourth consecutive podium – his sixth of 2023 – as the Briton continued his run of form.

However, Norris is anticipating a challenging weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, a track that lacks the characteristics most fondly appreciated by McLaren’s car.

And the same goes for Interlagos in Sao Paulo where F1 will be heading next week.

“I think going to two very tough weekends coming up – both here and Brazil,” Norris admitted, speaking in Mexico on Thursday.

“Very few medium-high speed corners. A lot of very slow speed, second gear, third gear, which is just where we’re very weak.

• Read also: Piastri bracing for ‘completely new’ tracks in Mexico and Brazil

“I think the main thing is there’s no strengths of our car here this weekend. Maybe a bit of straight line braking.

“There’s no medium-high speed, which is where we are very competitive. It’s where we get a lot of time back.

“In races, for example, we’ve always had to push high-speed, which is not something you necessarily want to do. But to make up for a lack of slow-speed performance we have to push in high-speed, which causes more tyre temperature, more degradation.

“So it’s two things that go wrong for us very quickly. If it’s cool, you get away with it. But when it was as hot as, say, Texas was, it’s what led to our slightly worse performance on a Sunday.”

“I think what’s going to make it maybe a bit trickier is just our contrast of the last few weekends have been so good,” he added.

“They have been tracks which have suited us and always in the past have kind of suited us reasonably well and Texas generally kind of hasn’t. So I think we’re just going to see maybe a little contrast.”

If McLaren indeed does struggle relative to its direct rivals in Mexico and in Brazil, who does Norris see fighting ahead of the Woking-based outfit?

“You’re going to see Aston, for example, I think are going to be very competitive here,” he said. “Mercedes, I think they’re going to be very competitive here.

“It’s just because it’s a lot of stop-start, second gear, third gear, second gear corners where you just can easily lose a lot of lap time through 2-3kph minimum speed. You lose a lot of lap time.

“I think we’ve always been clear when we said tracks were going to be good or bad [for us].

“It’s nice when you’ve had surprises when we’ve actually done a bit better, but I think we know the ones which we’re definitely going to struggle with and have kind of always struggled a little bit which is here in Brazil.”

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