McLaren’s season has hit a rough patch, and the latest symptom is a straightline speed problem that has cost Lando Norris track position at back-to-back grands prix. The team made changes to the car ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend to address the issue, but whether those tweaks solve the underlying problem remains to be seen once Norris gets back on track in equal machinery against teammate Oscar Piastri.
The deficit has been measurable and costly. Norris said the issue cost him between one and two tenths of a second compared to Piastri across the Baku and Sepang weekends, a gap that repeatedly turned into two or three grid positions in qualifying. For a team fighting on multiple fronts this season, that kind of swing is the difference between fighting for poles and settling for the second row.
The Straightline Speed Gap Between Teammates
Norris described the problem in blunt terms after qualifying sessions where he watched Piastri pull away on the straights in what is supposed to be an identical car. “It’s been a frustrating two weekends trying to figure out what the issue’s been and why there’s just been a constant lack of straightline speed and performance, especially in this kind of battle we’ve been in, the last two qualifyings – it’s been two or three positions. So, it’s cost me quite a lot,” Norris said, according to The Race.
The gap is notable because it is specific to Norris’ car rather than a McLaren-wide trend. Piastri has not reported the same deficit, which points to a car-specific issue rather than a broader aerodynamic or power unit shortfall affecting both drivers equally. That distinction matters for how McLaren approaches a fix: a problem isolated to one chassis is typically easier to diagnose and correct than one baked into the car’s base concept.
A Difficult Stretch Beyond The Speed Deficit
The straightline speed issue has not existed in isolation. Both Norris and Piastri struggled for pace in Malaysia, according to ESPN, suggesting the team’s broader competitiveness has wavered even when the Norris-specific issue is set aside.
That stretch got worse in Singapore. Norris collided with Piastri during the sprint race, an incident that made McLaren’s third consecutive race without a podium finish. The skid came after Norris had won back-to-back grands prix in Hungary and the Netherlands, a sharp reversal in form that underscores how quickly McLaren’s fortunes have shifted over a few race weekends.
Norris took responsibility for the collision afterward. “I can’t attempt what I did. I should never have attempted in the first place, even if the move was on.
I’ve got to think of the team that I represent more than myself,” he said, per Motorsport.com. The apology reflects the stakes of a podiumless stretch for a team that had looked like a genuine frontrunner only weeks earlier, as detailed in a separate incident involving Franco Colapinto that drew scrutiny toward Norris’ on-track judgment.
What McLaren Changed And What It Didn’t Say
McLaren made changes to Norris’ car specifically to target the straightline speed issue heading into the Singapore weekend. The team has not detailed publicly what those changes involved or what it believes caused the deficit in the first place, and Norris’ own comments on the fix reflected measured optimism rather than certainty.
“Yeah, hopeful. Need to get on track first and see how much better it is,” Norris said of the changes, according to The Race. That is a driver managing expectations rather than declaring the problem solved, and it leaves the actual test of the fix to on-track running rather than any pre-weekend promise.
The Counterpoint: One Fix Won’t Erase Every Problem
Even if the straightline speed changes work exactly as intended, they address only one strand of McLaren’s recent struggles. The Malaysia weekend showed both cars lacking pace, not just Norris’, which suggests the team’s issues extend beyond a single car-specific gremlin. The Singapore sprint collision was a driving incident, not a mechanical one, and no fix to the car changes the racecraft questions that Norris himself raised in his apology.
Fixing straightline speed also does not guarantee results on a weekend where qualifying margins and strategy execution matter just as much as top speed. McLaren’s run of three podiumless races came on the heels of two wins, a reminder that this team is still capable of beating the field when everything lines up. Whether the Singapore changes represent a genuine turning point or a partial patch is something only subsequent race weekends will show.
What To Watch Next
The immediate test comes once Norris gets back on track in Singapore and the team can compare his straightline numbers directly against Piastri’s under race conditions. If the gap closes, it would confirm the issue was isolated and fixable. If it persists, McLaren will need to look beyond the specific changes made for this weekend and reassess what is actually driving the discrepancy between its two cars.
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