Lando Norris reveals McLaren fix after heartbreaking failure

Lando Norris has revealed the countermeasures McLaren has put in place to ensure a repeat of his Dutch GP failure does not strike again. 

In the closing stages at Zandvoort, Norris was forced to retire from his chase of team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri when he ground to a halt with what looked to be an engine failure, with smoke seen billowing from the car.

However, further investigations by McLaren have proved the issue was not an engine failure from Mercedes' side, but rather a McLaren problem with an engine oil line failing, triggering an oil leak.

On-board sensors then shut down the engine automatically to prevent further damage, with the DNF leaving Norris 34 points behind Piastri in the standings, instead of the 16 it would have been had he finished second to the Australian's sister MCL39.

Reflecting on the steps taken to ensure a repeat does not happen, Norris identified a minor penalty to be incurred after the offending part had been made "stronger."

"Like I've said, there's been 60-plus races of zero faults and failures with minor things here and there, but nothing which has cost me or my team-mate points, it's pretty impressive," Norris told media, including RacingNews365. 

"There are a lot of insanely complicated things that have to come together, and the diagnosis of what happened is pretty easy.

"It's a part that's broken, and they look at it and go: 'Yeah, that's broken', but the understanding of how to fix it [is important]. 

"They've made the same part, but stronger; it is the same thing, but Formula 1 is about making things lighter and stronger, so there is probably a very, very small weight penalty that comes with this part.

"It is a pretty small part, and something which costs a little bit to make, the team have done an incredibly good job, it's just unfortunate timing that it's in probably the most important year of my [career] and ours in Formula 1, but I am just happy we did 60 races without anything [happening]."