The first and second stages of a three-step upgrade to change “pretty much every single aerodynamic part on the car” appears to have turned around McLaren’s poor start to the season.
Since the first updates arrived in Austria, Lando Norris has qualified inside the top four for the three GPs and finished runner-up to Max Verstappen at Silverstone and last weekend at the Hungaroring.
But team boss Andrea Stella has warned that McLaren may not continue its run of form at the Belgian venue for the sprint race weekend, since its characterisation as a high-speed track overlooks how time is gained during a lap.
He points to three decisive low-speed corners as being the key to a strong performance at Spa. However, McLaren’s recent development has mainly given a boost in medium- to high-speed turns.
Stella said: “Even if Spa is normally mentioned as one of the high-speed tracks, in reality, the highest-speed corner, which is corner 10 [Pouhon] is flat in qualifying.
“There's a lot of lap time in corner one [La Source] which is [50mph], in corner eight [Les Combes] which is [60mph] and in the last chicane, which is [55mph].
“So, I don't want to repeat myself, but I go with some care because in these three corners, at the moment, we see that we lose time. So, I think that's where we are.
“It will be also a sprint event. So, in addition to the outright performance, it will be important how rapidly you adapt your car to the demand of the track.
Source: Autosport