Lando Norris rejects McLaren upgrade claim

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."