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Lando Norris has acknowledged he needs to show greater maturity behind the wheel, as McLaren moved to clear the air following his collision with teammate Oscar Piastri during the Singapore Sprint.
The Briton drew criticism from team management after a risky dive for fourth place in the Sprint led to contact between the two cars, costing vital championship points and breaching McLaren's internal racing guidelines.
In the aftermath, team principal Andrea Stella announced that serious discussions would take place at the Woking factory to prevent similar incidents. That debrief took place last week, with the team now ready to move on after Norris apologised for his error in judgment.
"I take full responsibility for my mistakes and learn from them. This team pushes and motivates me every single race weekend, and my goal is to reward everyone's hard work by learning, making better decisions, and representing the team in the best possible way," Norris said ahead of the United States Grand Prix.
The intra-team clash capped off a challenging triple-header in which McLaren struggled to match Red Bull's resurgence, allowing Max Verstappen to claim back-to-back victories in Malaysia and Singapore.
"After those tough races, we took away the necessary lessons—both in terms of car performance and on-track execution. In Formula 1, success is never guaranteed, so our focus is to keep building, developing, and pushing forward as one team," Stella commented.
Despite McLaren introducing several upgrades to their challenger, performances in Malaysia and Singapore revealed that while the new parts functioned as expected, Red Bull had made a bigger step forward. Meanwhile, Ferrari showcased formidable pace on the tight Singapore street circuit, and Mercedes also extracted extra speed from their package.
Heading into the upcoming race weekend at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, the Woking outfit is preparing another modest upgrade package. The revisions focus primarily on the front end of the car to enhance braking confidence. McLaren expect the Texas circuit layout to suit their car far better than Baku and Singapore.
"We have some modest updates lined up for this race, focusing on brake reliability and efficiency. We also have a few subtle floor tweaks to evaluate. The last five or six races have highlighted just how difficult it is to predict the pecking order among the front-runners. It comes down to multiple factors—upgrades, track characteristics, and driver preferences. The past few events weren't ideal for us, but I believe we're regaining our footing, and the track in Austin should be much friendlier to our car," explained chief designer Rob Marshall.
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