What illegal Norris lap helped reveal about intriguing McLaren technique

Lando Norris’s corner-cutting at Turns 1 and 2 made for a slightly exaggerated picture in Saudi Arabian Grand Prix practice but it did help highlight an intriguing McLaren style.

Norris set two times quick enough to be fastest in Jeddah FP2, with his initial 1m28.340s slightly bettered to a 1m28.267s on a lap that started with Norris taking too much speed into the first corner, skipping across the run-off and continuing with the lap.

If that happened in qualifying, it would have been deleted - but that’s not the case in practice, hence the lap being illegal (as it was against rules) but valid.

Apart from the fact it mischaracterised a comparison of their 'best' laps, what is more interesting is how it helps illustrate the way Norris and Oscar Piastri were attacking the first two corners that made for an interesting comparison among the top teams and even the two McLaren drivers. 

It was noticeable from trackside that they were taking more entry speed than their immediate rivals, and using the apex kerbs at Turns 1 and 2 heavily.

On the medium tyre, this was more pronounced at Turn 1, probably to help get the car rotated with that extra speed. But because there was then more work to do to get the car rotated through Turn 2, the inside kerb was still constantly being used aggressively there on the softs.

Norris’s first lap, and Oscar Piastri’s best, confirmed that they had a different approach to Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and George Russell - the fastest drivers from the other three top teams.

The McLaren drivers were braking later and carrying more speed into the apex of Turn 1, sacrificing exit speed from Turn 2. This played out as a negligible time loss to Verstappen, a slight gain overall against Russell, and going through the two corners more than a tenth quicker than Leclerc.

The McLaren is weaker at low speed, relative to its overall strong performance, and by way of example team boss Andrea Stella had made a reference to The Race on Friday that the car would have left a very different impression watching trackside at the final chicane at Suzuka compared to the high-speed first sector.

So, what was interesting about the Jeddah approach is that it indicated the McLaren drivers were using a slightly different approach to potentially mitigate that weakness. By making Turn 1 slightly faster, even at the cost of a more awkward Turn 2, they may have been turned two slow speed corners into one-and-a-half slow speed corners.

And, even though it’s only FP2, the upshot was next-to-no loss against Verstappen (who was much faster than the McLarens in the chicane at Suzuka, to re-use that example) and a quicker run through than Russell and Leclerc.

Furthermore, and this is what the Norris illegal lap helped highlight, Piastri seemed to be taking this approach further than Norris - who braked and lifted earlier than his team-mate on his first push lap.

When Norris cut the corner, it was as a result of braking a few metres later than before. Practice is the time to experiment so perhaps Norris saw this as a potential area of loss to Piastri, even though he had actually been quicker through the first sequence as a whole because his slightly more conservative entry paid him back out of Turn 2.

This could also be an example of Norris's and Piastri's differing driving styles in the McLaren - Piastri braking harder and later, trying to 'V' Turn 1, where Norris is more conservative on the brakes and focuses more on carrying corner speed in the classic 'U' style.

Overall, Norris was quicker through this section, even without his later 'illegal' corner cutting - so his natural style was working for him regardless - but we can see how he's trying to chase some extra lap time in the braking zone to extend that gap.

It will be interesting to see how this continues on Saturday, in final practice but especially in qualifying. This could be an area McLaren looks relatively weak and the drivers are working hardest to mitigate - and it might be a point of distinction between the pair of them as well.