Norris fuel fix advances as McLaren targets Singapore speed issue
NXTbets Pro | Published On: October 9, 2026
Norris fuel fix
McLaren made progress on a straight-line speed problem that affected Lando Norris, and the team tied the issue to the fuel system and fuel injection on his Mercedes power unit. The work focused on auxiliary components and fuel-system parts, part of an effort to stop a recurring problem that has followed Norris through several races. He said the issue could have cost him two or three grid places in qualifying, and he linked it to recent Grands Prix in Baku, Sepang and Bahrain. Norris also said the same problem hit Oscar Piastri, though to a lesser extent.
Norris said McLaren felt closer to a fix after Friday’s work in Singapore, but he said he would not know how effective the changes were until he got on track. The weekend at Marina Bay offered a different test from the circuits where the problem had shown up before. Norris said Singapore’s tight street circuit should lessen the effect because there are few long straights. That made the session a useful checkpoint as the team worked through a technical issue.
Singapore sprint qualifying
Piastri qualified fourth and Norris qualified fifth in Singapore Sprint Qualifying, a result that put both McLaren drivers in the top five but left Norris a step behind his teammate. Norris briefly went quickest in SQ3 before Ferrari and Red Bull ran later and pushed him back down the order. Piastri then improved on his final lap and moved ahead of Norris. The margin mattered to Norris after a session in which he was still trying to judge how much the fuel-system work had helped.
Norris said he did not put together a good enough lap and had “no excuse” for it. That left the session with a clear split between McLaren’s two cars, with Piastri edging Norris at the end and both drivers leaving room to find more pace. Piastri said McLaren had done “more or less what we could’ve done,” and he added that the car felt better on soft tires than on mediums. He also called Marina Bay “very tricky” in Sprint Qualifying, a view that fit the way the session unfolded as the track evolved and later runners reshuffled the order.
McLaren pace chase
McLaren was also trying to recover the pace it had earlier in the season, when Norris took pole positions and wins at Budapest, Zandvoort, Monza and Madrid. That stretch set a high standard for the team, and the work on the fuel system sat alongside the push to get back to that level. The straight-line speed issue had become part of the picture in recent rounds, alongside the effort to recover that earlier pace.
Singapore gave McLaren a different kind of reading on both fronts. Norris said the layout might hide some of the loss on the straights. The result showed both McLaren cars near the front while the team worked through the issue. The result left the team assessing how much the changes had helped.
