McLaren believes that after an impressive performance at the Portuguese Grand Prix so far, it has taken the “next step” in understanding its upgrade package.
With Carlos Sanz Jr., leaving serious doubts about the benefits of the updates at Nਬਰrburgring, the team has had a much easier time at Portimao.
And after closing the fourth row of the grid in the seventh and Lendo Norris in the eighth with Sange, McLaren is happy that his performance this weekend is working to upgrade.
Team boss Andreas Siddle said: “I’m glad we can take the next step in understanding this new concept of the nose box that we are using.”
Sanz said he felt much more than a car this weekend when he last visited Germany.
“The car has been competitive all week,” he said. “Especially from me, I’m very happy with the spirit of the car this week and it seems like we as a team have done a great job of understanding what happened last weekend.
“The car I was driving here definitely made me feel better and I had an easy day of the week.”
Norris echoed Sanz’s comments, saying the move came with a better understanding of what is needed to get the most out of the upgrades.
“I think we have a good understanding from Germany,” he said. “There was nothing wrong with what we had in Germany, we didn’t have much time to fully understand it, because it was just a practice session.
“We’ve come this weekend with a better understanding, a better knowledge of maximizing the package. And I think we’ve done that by the end of this week.”
The McLaren update has so far revolved around a new concept of a nose box, similar to the design used by Mercedes.
With that element now working, McLaren is evaluating other changes to his car – testing new parts in practice in Portugal on Friday.
Siddle added: “We started the race week with the launch of this new nose box concept package at Lando Nਬਰrburgring.
“We then examined the additional parts to see how they performed in conjunction with this new aero concept, which was positive.
“But these parts should be introduced in future generations, and in the end we continue to have the same configuration on both cars, which is a lot more than a Lando used in Nਬਰrburgring.”
