Lando Norris feels McLaren will soon be challenging for wins if it can eradicate a number of longstanding weaknesses inherent in the car.
A raft of upgrades over the past two races in Austria and Britain propelled the MCL60 out of a congested midfield to clinch a front-row grid slot and a podium on merit as Norris netted second on both occasions behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Team-mate Oscar Piastri, whose car only sported the initial updates seen on Norris’ machinery at the Red Bull Ring, was a superb third in qualifying and just missed out on joining Norris in the top three in the race due to an untimely safety car.
Whilst Norris was naturally delighted with the car’s performance at Silverstone, he feels there remain “complicated” issues that will take time to resolve, although at least feels the team is now on the right path to eradicating them.
Asked as to the level of improvement with the ongoing limitations of the car, he replied: “It’s 70-30 – 70 percent not fixed, 30 percent fixed just by making the car quicker, adding load and having a better performance, so I think 70 percent at the minute.
“If we just had more load, more of it [the problems] will be covered but it’s not the whole solution.”
Claiming that performances such as those at Silverstone highlight the fact the team is “not miles away on certain things”, he added: “It’s just some characteristics and handling that I would still say we’ve had as an inherent issue over the last five years, that we definitely still struggle with.
“There are still very good things that we’ve been able to carry through, such as high-speed performance but there are plenty of things to work on.
“If we really can tackle those bigger problems, which are more fundamental and not [helped] just by adding load, then I’m confident we can have a much more competitive car from race one in 2024, or this year.
“So there are plenty of good things but there are still some issues we know of and are trying to tackle, but it’s complicated, takes time.
“Everyone’s working extremely hard and if we can make progress – as we made over the last few races with those certain things – over the next five, six months and into ‘24, I’m confident we can be a lot more competitive and fighting for some podiums and wins at some point.”
The difficulty with the current generation of cars, in particular, since the introduction of new aerodynamic regulations, is trying to find the right balance between low-, medium-, and high-speed drag and downforce depending on the circuit.
Suggested to team principal Andrea Stella that the car was now close to being an ‘all-rounder’, he replied: “You can make some trade-offs between what you want the performance to be in low speed and the performance in high speed.
“These are ground-effect cars and your performance depends on the proximity to the ground, and you may optimise your car to be further away from the ground, which means low speed, or closer to the ground which means high speed.
“In terms of finding the right level of downforce and drag, in general – everyone tries to reduce drag – we have work to do in terms of reducing drag.
“This is independent of balance, independent of the performance you want to achieve in low speed or in high speed. It’s just a separate topic on which we at McLaren have work to do.”
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