Lando Norris, McLaren, Circuit de Catalunya, 2020

Norris: I’ve already improved in some areas

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In the round-up: Lando Norris says he can already detect improvements in his driving style compared to last year.

What they say

[f1tv2020testa]Norris said he could feel improvements in his driving after his first full day in the McLaren:

A tough day, especially for the neck, but it was productive. I think a lot of things learned for the team, a lot of things than for me and already I feel like I’ve improved on a couple of things which I wanted to improve on such as the long-run pace and management of tyres and so on.

We did a variation of a lot of things, the aerodynamic runs with the rakes on. No low-fuel stuff because no one ever does them. A lot of high fuel, a lot of set-up changes, trying to get an understanding of what this car does and how set-up changes affect this car course because even though you do ride height or front wing or rear wing or something it can still affect the car in different ways to last year.

So just trying to get a bit of a reading for how this car changes and drives compared to last year. But apart from that, pretty straightforward.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Could F1 borrow an idea from American off-road racing to reduce the danger from debris on track?

In American short course, off-road racing, every piece of bodywork has to have the owner cars race number on the inside, and more importantly, the teams have to pay a penalty for each pound of body work they lose during a race. This massively encourages the teams to keep their body work attached and in whole.

Granted F1 cars don’t lose body work, but they do lose a lot of small carbon aero bits. Maybe start charging them for the debris they leave on track – they might start being attached more securely!
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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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15 comments on “Norris: I’ve already improved in some areas”

  1. I think the COTD is a bit tongue in cheek, has it ever happened in F1? Bits are broken off because of collison so would you need to fine both parties? And what happens when the car hits a curb and a piece of floor comes away, would you then hit up the track owner or the designer?
    Perhaps if they fitted a large metal ring around the cars like carnival bumper cars.

    1. @johnrkh

      It seems reasonable to me. Debris on the track flattens tires and interrupts races. We’ve seen a few cases of bad judgement in removing debris too.

      It doesn’t seem technically unfeasible. I suspect most bodywork would be easier to restrain than tires because the mass are expected loads are smaller.

      1. Theres a clear difference between “losing bodywork” and shattering pieces it like F1. If you wanna penalise F1 cars for littering the track you will have to inspect them after the race to see what they droped. Sorting up all the carbon splinters from the track and identifying them would be a job offering put up in hell.

      2. This wasnt ment as a reply to JohnH

    2. I’m just waiting for F1 to adopt my idea of using a team of track-side high pressure air- or waterblowers to shoot debris off the track before it becomes an issue.

      1. @balue
        With waterblowers you could combine it with Bernies sprinkler proposal. A constant stream over the track will keep it clear :)

  2. COTD: Any operation worth their salt already has an inventory system in place that keeps track of the individual parts, sometimes it’s laseretched QR codes, sometimes serialnumbers, RF-tags what have you.

    You could, if you so wanted, even identify individual carbonfibres by utilizing chemical tagging or nano-etching.

  3. I see Lewis has all kinds of power in that Mercedes.

    Omni-Power! Continent moving power.

    Meanwhile other teams are stuck with horsepower.

  4. @slotopen I was just having a bit of a laugh, I’m not aware of whole pieces of bodywork coming of an F1 car unless it’s a big enough shunt to bring out the safety car anyway.
    I suppose you’re talking about the bits and pieces of front wing or bargeboard that get broken off after a contact in a corner?
    But that’s the penalty for using carbon fiber that is incredibly light and ridged but brittle, these are just small pieces not entire bits of bodywork so containing them I think would be unmanageable. They could go back to using aluminium which does not shatter under most conditions.

  5. Re Comment of the Day.
    I had wondered why it was teams wouldn’t tell a driver who’s car had a deflated tyre what speed they should drive at to get back to the pits without leaving bits of car and tyre strewn all over the track. Then, in the course of investigating some other issue I came across the rule that the Driver has to drive the car alone and unaided. So, instead of having someone like the team or even the Race Director mandating say a maximum speed allowed for a car that has a deflated tyre in Sector 1, a maximum speed in Sector 2, and a maximum speed in Sector 3, or giving the driver a “delta” that will get them, their car, and most of the tyre back to the pits more or less intact, the rules say no one is allowed to tell the driver what speed is the optimum for their predicament. So instead cars get thrashed and whipped by flailing tyres leaving bits of carbon fibre and bits of tyre on the track, which can cause problems for other drivers and be a hazard.
    I don’t see why it should be a team can’t offer advice to a driver in the event of situation like a deflated tyre, but that’s a problem for F1 to sort out. I think we all loose in the current situation.

    1. @drycrust
      The teams is telling the drivers what pace they should go at all the time. In my oppinion if there is need for a speed limit to drive safe they should pull to the side.

  6. i can’t help but feel that WEC is dying and won’t survive without wholesale changes… it’s sad but who could possibly be vaguely excited by such a lack of competition? It’s basically motorsports WWF!

    1. I refuse to watch any racing series that penalizes successful teams or drivers.

  7. Easy for him to say from the outside, although he’s been in that situation as well, having to negotiate and make a contract more than once in F1.

    From next Sunday to be precise, so roughly two and a half at this point, but getting closer nevertheless.

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