McLaren encouraged by São Paulo upgrades after Friday practice

McLaren reported encouraging initial results from its upgrade package during Friday practice for the São Paulo Grand Prix, with data indicating the changes were delivering the expected gains.

RacingNews365 reports that the package covers the front wing, rear wing, beam wing and floor, and that McLaren was the only team to bring updates to Interlagos.

Lando Norris led first practice by 0.082 seconds over Kimi Antonelli. Antonelli topped the second session, with Norris a quarter of a second behind in second and Oscar Piastri fifth.

McLaren racing director Randy Singh said the team would make its final decision on Friday night after reviewing the second-practice data, but expected all the upgrades to remain on the car.

“FP2, I think we seemed to struggle a little bit more compared to the Mercedes, just two tenths off on every lap basically. But relative to some of the others, I think we seem pretty good,” said McLaren driver Norris.

Norris said he expected to combine the components for Saturday after evaluating them separately on Friday. He said the changes were intended to add load and grip rather than alter the car’s handling characteristics.

“I would say maybe there's a small change in the right direction in that it seems just a little bit more straightforward to drive, but I don't think we can ever judge things over just one track. But so far for today things have seemed a little bit more straightforward, which is a good thing,” Norris said.

Motorsport.com reports that Leonardo Fornaroli completed most of McLaren’s rake testing during his mandatory first-practice rookie run. Singh praised Fornaroli’s contribution to testing the new parts in detail.

RacingNews365 reports that McLaren’s earlier updates at Baku and Austin failed to produce the expected gains, with the team seeking to reverse a recent dip in form against Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.