Norris and Piastri suffer reality check with McLaren needing “urgent work”

After enduring a torrid start to the season, McLaren have enjoyed a stunning recent upswing in form following a raft of upgrades that have turned around their competitiveness. 

Lando Norris finished second in back-to-back rounds at Silverstone and Budapest and teammate Oscar Piastri also claimed a podium in the Spa sprint race. 

However, Piastri retired with race-ending damage picked up in a first-lap tangle with Carlos Sainz in the grand prix, while Norris salvaged seventh after recovering from a nightmare opening stint. 

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella admitted the weekend highlighted the work the British outfit still needs to do. 

“This weekend told us that where we could do work,” he said. 

“The car is improved in some areas. This was confirmed. But, at the same time, this weekend confirmed the areas that we haven't addressed yet.

“[It] gives us a reality check that there's more work to do and, to some extent, confirms that those areas, they need to be addressed quite urgently.

“This urgency, for instance, comes from the fact that a second race after [the summer] shutdown is Monza. You can't go racing in Monza like [we did in Spa].

“So, there's urgent work that needs to happen at McLaren to fix the situation.”

McLaren were without an optimised low-drag rear rear wing at Belgium and Stella acknowledged that straight-line speed is an area where the team needs to improve. 

“We have to very frankly admit that, while this configuration gave us an advantage in the previous days, [the GP] was starting to be a significant issue,” he explained. 

“Overall, let's say there's some learning we take out of this weekend. I think the opportunity to remark is not like we necessarily wanted to target this configuration.

“Fixing the efficiency of the car at low drag is on the to-do list. But it was lower than some of the priorities that we have worked on in the previous months.”