Photo by Dan Istitene – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
Coming off their best result of the year, where does McLaren go next?
Things are never dull in Formula 1.
This was supposed to be a quiet week off, following a back-to-back in Austria and Britain, and ahead of another back-to-back in Hungary and the Netherlands. But a thunderbolt from the clouds came down on Monday, with the shocking news that Daniel Ricciardo was coming back to the grid.
After just ten races, AlphaTauri and Red Bull had seen enough from Nyck de Vries. The rookie was out, and Ricciardo was in, on loan to AlphaTauri starting with the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Still, with F1 on a bye week following the British Grand Prix it is time to take stock of just where each of the ten teams are ahead of Budapest. Working through the field from the bottom of the Constructors’ standings to the top, what is the biggest question facing each team right now?
On Thursday we took a look at the bottom-five teams in the standings. Now we can start looking at the teams in the top half of the grid, starting with the darlings of Silverstone, McLaren.
Have they fully solved the puzzle with their upgrades?
Photo by Vince Mignott/MB Media/Getty Images
The big winners of the British Grand Prix?
McLaren.
With both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri having upgraded MCL60s for Silverstone — after the team debuted a new package for Norris alone at the Austrian GP — the team posted their best weekend of the year, vaulting ahead of Alpine in the standings.
Both Piastri and Norris qualified in the top three, with Norris in P2 and Piastri in P3. While they could not get both drivers on the podium in the Grand Prix, Norris managed a P2 in his home race, while Piastri came across the line fourth.
So, are their problems solved?
Not so fast my friend, as Lee Corso likes to say.
First off, it is fair to point out that these developments for the team have been long in coming. Dating back to pre-season testing, Team Principal Andrea Stella was advising fans and media alike that they were behind in development for the MCL60. Stella promised that upgrades would soon be coming, by the fourth race of the season in Azerbaijan.
While the team did bring some improvements to Baku, when I spoke with Norris ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix the driver outlined how the upgrades really just put the MCL60 on par with where it should have been when the year began.
“We’ve got a couple new bits on the car which is good, the team’s done a very good job to get them for now. But I think these are the things I think we said we should have started the season with,” said the driver. “But we’ve got them now, which I think is the main thing. They should definitely move the car forward.”
Well, now the complete array of upgrades has arrived, and we are seeing the results.
But again, have they solved all McLaren’s problems?
Not exactly.
There are still some questions about the upgraded MCL60, and whether those improvements will stick race-to-race, or if they are more track-specific. Slow-speed corners remain an issue for the car. As Norris himself said to Motorsport following the British GP, that could pose a problem at some upcoming circuits.
Such as the Hungaroring, which McLaren will face in just over a week.
“We do have a poor car, and when I say poor, I would say pretty terrible, in the low-speed corners,” explained Norris to Motorsport. “It’s extremely difficult to drive.
“I feel [fans] getting excited and I accept that, but we’re going to go to a couple of tracks coming up where I’m sure people are going to be saying: ‘What have you done now? How has it got so bad all of a sudden?’”
This is also backed up by telemetry data, courtesy of F1 Tempo. Looking at the fastest lap of the British GP from both Norris and Verstappen, you’ll see that while Norris was faster on the straights and in higher-speed corners, Verstappen was faster in the tighter, slow-speed corners:
It’s notable too that Norris’s fastest lap came on the hard tyres, while Verstappen posted his on the softs.
Still, with some of the circuits coming up, in particular next weekend, McLaren will need to find an answer to this issue.
