Norris: 'Our straight line speed makes our life very difficult in the race'

After a dramatic start to the season, McLaren managed to recover a bit in Baku. Both drivers managed to get into Q3 for qualifying, Oscar Piastri finished 10th in the sprint race and Norris managed to score precious points in the Grand Prix by finishing ninth. A major factor in this good result was the series of upgrades McLaren had brought with them to Azerbaijan.

"It's definitely a step in the right direction," reflected Norris. "The upgrade was a big help, the new wing and the adjusted wings and things like that, which have also helped. Still how things are working are very similar. It's just we've helped small things here and there. And it's more like the new philosophy of floor, which is the big thing. And down the line, we can try to optimize this floor a lot more and take some bigger steps forward."

McLaren is not done yet

Still, Norris does want to make it clear that the work for McLaren is by no means finished. "I think this track also is a little bit of a preferred track for the car, just like Australia was for us. But if you look back to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, we still have similar struggles to what we had. It's not like we fix them and it's a different car. But straight line speed, we probably still have the slowest car, which makes our life in racing very, very difficult. It forces us to push in the corners and, and just get, you know, eaten up in the straights quite easily."