Miami GP Carelessness Causes Big Blow for Zak Brown and Co. as Lando Norris’s Car Floor is Laid Bare for Competitors

During the Sprint Race in Miami, the first turn itself brought about a lot of action, with multiple cars making contact. This led to two retired cars, one of Lando Norris and the other of Lance Stroll. While the crash was caused by Lewis Hamilton’s dive bomb into the inside line of the turn, the Briton managed to jump up to P9, leaving other cars to suffer for his aggressiveness.

The FIA did not penalize any of the drivers for the incident, and the car carried on. Without Lando Norris and Lance Stroll, of course. Fernando Alonso, the third member involved in the crash, could continue racing after repairing the damage done to the wheel. But McLaren faced the toughest fate as the car was unable to continue racing, and while the cranes picked up the car, the competitors got to see what their new upgrades were.

McLaren’s secrets unveiled as Lando Norris’ crash on turn 1

There are very few things in an F1 driver’s life that are sadder than not making it past the first turn in a race. It might come as a shock, but this is highly common when 20 cars decide to take one turn in a matter of seconds, and this time it was Lando Norris who got the worst of it.

After the car was unable to continue the race, the crane picked up the car to clear it off the track, and a picture was taken revealing the floor of the car. Some of the interesting changes that were noted in the McLaren floor were “a lot of patches on the front end of the floor with really modified floor expansion and groves in the diffuser to empower the vortexes.”

Although we are not aerodynamics engineers by a long shot, it looks like these modifications were to improve the downforce and how the air flows around the car. McLaren has been talking about their upgrades for a while now and during the Miami Grand Prix, Lando Norris got a fully upgraded car.

Oscar Piastri scores points at the Miami Grand Prix Sprint

While Lando Norris got a completely upgraded car compared to China, Oscar Piastri only got half the upgrades. However, it was the Australian driver who was shining brighter than McLaren star Norris. During both the sprint qualifier and race, Piastri was P6. From qualifying to the starting grid to the checkered flag, he showed a consistent result, which was not impressive but much better than his teammate.

Although Piastri did not get all the upgrades his teammate got, he was comfortable in his car and did not win or lose a single position during the Sprint race. Surprisingly the starting grid looked the same as the results until P6 where Oscar Piastri finished after which were the Aston Martin’s that were hit in the same accident that put Norris out of the race.

That being said, Lando Norris and his car will give better results during the main race? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.