McLaren “have fun stuff coming for Monza”

In the round-up: McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says the team have more upgrades coming for this weekend’s race at Monza following their dominant display at Zandvoort.

In brief

McLaren bringing Monza upgrade – Brown

McLaren endured a poor weekend at Monza last year, coming away with a single eighth-place finish for Lando Norris. While some of the upgrades they brought for the high-downforce Zandvoort track will be unsuitable for the fastest track on the F1 calendar, Brown said they have other parts coming for this weekend.

“I think we clearly have a very fast car,” he told Sky. “We’ve got some more fun stuff coming for Monza because obviously it’s a different type of track. Here is quite a bit of high downforce, it’s very low downforce.

“So I think we’ll be ready for Monza. But let’s see, the Red Bull was very fast through the quick stuff. I think they’ll be quick there.”

Power sees Ferrucci as Penske’s fourth man

Will Power says Santino Ferrucci will prove a useful ally for Penske in the final three races which will decide the IndyCar championship. Ferrucci’s Foyt team has a technical alliance with Penske and the pair swapped notes on their plans for the start of last weekend’s race at Gateway where they shared the front row of the grid.

Power, whose win on Sunday made him the closest challenger to points leader Alex Palou, said his team should prioritise him in the title fight. “We should probably be looking at how can we get the 12 car in the best possible position,” he said. “Really that’s our only chance.

“We’ve got three really good drivers – four really if you include Santino – that are capable of running at the front. That can take up a lot of positions. If I’m the head of that group, we win the race, that starts to make things look possible. We’ll talk about that when we get to Milwaukee, see if that’s a possibility.”

WEC BoP change hits Toyota hardest

Toyota are the biggest losers in the World Endurance Championship’s latest Balance of Performance change ahead of this weekend’s race at the Circuit of the Americas. The GR010s must run with an extra 5kg of weight and their maximum power below 250kph has been reduced by 9KW to just 497KW, making them both the heaviest and least powerful cars in the field.

Their only rival also contending with a double whammy of more weight and less power is Porsche, who add 2kg and lose 3KW. Peugeot have the biggest weight cut, losing 14kg but also dropping 1hp. Lamborghini and BMW can expect to perform better as both gain 1KW while dropping 9kg and 7kg of weight respectively. In Lamborghini’s case, their SC63 can now run 35kg less weight than Toyota’s car as 23KW more power.

Ferrari see their maximum power cut by 3KW, leaving them on 500KW, while their weight has been cut by 5kg.

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