As Motorsport.com reports, McLaren has held further discussions regarding Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri following their Singapore Grand Prix sprint race collision, with the squad now considering the matter closed. Norris faced sharp criticism from team management after an ambitious lunge for fourth place took out both machines, violating internal racing principles and robbing the Woking outfit of crucial championship points.
Team principal Andrea Stella had flagged that sit-downs would happen back at the factory to prevent any repeats, and those conversations took place last week. Norris stepped up to own his error, offering a clear apology.
We’re bringing a modest selection of upgrades for this event, aimed at improving some braking reliability and performance issues,
"I take responsibility for my mistakes, and I learn from them," Norris stated in the team's United States Grand Prix preview. "This team is my motivation every weekend, and my aim is to repay the hard work everyone puts in by improving, making better decisions, and representing the team in the best possible way."
That intra-team drama capped off a bruising triple-header for the team. Red Bull unleashed a massive wave of performance upgrades that propelled Max Verstappen to back-to-back victories in Malaysia and Singapore, leaving the papaya cars with no answers.
"After a difficult triple-header, we take the lessons learned from both our performance and execution and put them into action," Stella added. "In F1, success is never guaranteed – so our response is to keep building, keep developing, and keep pushing forward together as one team."
While McLaren rolled out its own MCL40 updates in Malaysia, the team found itself baffled by a lack of pace. Singapore laid bare the reality that while their parts functioned as designed, Red Bull simply out-developed them, alongside a surging Ferrari on the high-downforce street layout and improving speed from Mercedes.
Desperate to bounce back, the team arrives at Austin with a fresh batch of relatively minor updates focused on the front of the car. These tweaks aim to give the drivers more confidence under braking, with the Circuit of the Americas expected to treat the machine much more kindly than Baku and Singapore did.
"We’re bringing a modest selection of upgrades for this event, aimed at improving some braking reliability and performance issues," said chief designer Rob Marshall. "We also have some small floor changes to test.
"We have all seen how difficult it is to predict the relative performance of the top teams over the last five or six races. Obviously, there are many factors in play here: cars being upgraded, cars suiting and drivers liking certain circuits among other factors. The last few races have not been great for us, but I think we’re getting stronger again and Austin is probably a better circuit for our car."
