Norris highlights 'little' details McLaren must find to catch Red Bull

Lando Norris says that McLaren only needs to make “little” improvements in order to fight more consistently at the front of the field.

The Woking squad began the current campaign on the back foot and languished towards the rear of the pack in the opening races after admitting it had missed targets with the launch-spec MCL60.

However, it took a sizeable leap forward with upgrades at the Austrian Grand Prix, with Norris scoring a duo of podiums at Silverstone and Budapest.

Norris has highlighted that if McLaren focuses on eliminating its weak points rather than continuing to bolster its strong areas, it can be in the mix at the head of the grid.

"There are some places where we lose a tremendous amount of lap time at times,” Norris told media including RacingNews365.

"It’s just down to the same things every time, which we just can't change with a bit of aero balance or mechanical balance, no matter what we tried we’re bad and we struggle.

"I think those things let us down in quite a few races. And even at some places we go to we're extremely competitive through 90% of the track, it’s just certain things, which then make us look bad.

"But if we didn't have some of these bad things, we would be very strong and a lot more competitive and competing for podiums, but sometimes it’s these little things which can make a big difference."

Norris to receive Singapore upgrades

McLaren is set to introduce upgrades this weekend at the Singapore Grand Prix on Norris’ car before teammate Oscar Piastri receives upgraded parts in Japan next week.

While Norris is hopeful the upgrades will boost his chances of a successful weekend, he says McLaren isn’t rushing to quick-fix its weaknesses amid confidence in its direction.

"It’s slow speed [where we are struggling]," he said.

"If I can get a bit more of what I believe the car needs to take that next step… a bit of it will be what we hope we will have this weekend, a bit of it will be what I want from a driving style point of view.

"That’s when I'm confident we can we can take the fight to the majority of all the teams, including Red Bull. We know that and we know we have a lot of a lot of things coming.

"So it's not like we're in a rush.

"We're trying as quickly as we can to develop the car, but there are also places we know we're just not where we need to be.

"We’ve been able to make progress with a lot of it, so we're confident we can do it with the rest."