McLaren’s rapid rise in constructors has revitalized F1

Lando Norris may have missed out on this year’s drivers’ title, but his McLaren team enter the final two races of the Formula 1 season on the brink of its first constructors’ championship in 26 years. In an increasingly close battle with Ferrari, McLaren lead the Italian team by 24 points with two races remaining and a maximum of 103 points up for grabs for both sides.

If McLaren can wrap up the championship over the next two weekends in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, it will represent its biggest triumph since Lewis Hamilton won his first drivers’ title with the team in 2008.

The story of how McLaren went from the bottom midfield to the front of the grid is a remarkable story that has not only transformed the team’s fortunes but also revitalized F1. Along with the recent resurgence of Ferrari and Mercedes, McLaren’s progress has brought an end to Red Bull’s dominance, while providing inspiration to the rest of the grid that big gains are possible in a relatively short space of time.

To lay the foundation

At the start of the 2023 season, it seemed inconceivable that any team, least of all McLaren, would challenge Red Bull for titles before the next major regulation change in 2026. After struggling in preseason testing, Norris and team-mate failed to Oscar Piastri to score points at the opening two races of 2023 as the car was well off the pace of Red Bull, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Mercedes.

The plans had already been in place for an overhaul by the technical department and were implemented ahead of the third round in Australia. James Key was removed from his role as technical director and replaced by three department heads in a new structure aimed at bringing “clarity and efficiency” to a seemingly lost Woking design office.

The broad changes were the vision of Andrea Stella, who took over the role of team manager from Andreas Seidl at the end of the 2022 season and is considered by many to be the driving force behind the team’s turnaround. A talented engineer who worked directly with Fernando Alonso during his time at Ferrari and followed the two-time champion to McLaren in 2015, Stella is a mild-mannered but inspirational figure within the team.

“Andrea leads by example – his thoughtfulness, his communication, his transparency,” McLaren CEO Zak Brown said earlier this year. “He’s not political. He’s a team player. Nobody works harder than Andrea. He listens to people, he listens to their perspectives. He takes everything on board.

“He communicates his direction and his decisions very well. He’s not interested in anything but performance, so he doesn’t get distracted by a lot of the other activities that maybe some of the other team principals do. He just wants to go out and race. “

Stella was aware of the need to strengthen his team when he took over and early in 2023 McLaren announced it had poached major engineers from its rivals, with Rob Marshall joining from Red Bull and David Sanchez from Ferrari. As the new chief designer, Marshall has been at the center of the team’s progress, although Sanchez only lasted a few months when he realized that the reality of the job offered did not match his expectations.

At the time, Stella said Sanchez was “too senior” for the role offered to him, adding that the team and engineer reached an amicable agreement to part ways, with Sanchez then moving to Alpine later in 2024.

With Marshall in place as chief designer, long-time McLaren engineer Neil Houldey was given the role of technical director of engineering, while Peter Prodromou, who joined McLaren from Red Bull in 2014, continued in his role as technical director of aerodynamics. The strengthened technical team also had a new wind tunnel to play with, which came online at the end of 2023 and undoubtedly contributed to the steps in performance the team needed to catch Red Bull.

The first product of the revised technical structure (pre-wind tunnel) was a major upgrade in time for the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix, which instantly vaulted the team onto the grid. Although Red Bull remained untouched for the rest of the 2023 season – with the exception of Carlos Sainz’s unusual victory at the Singapore Grand Prix – the Austria upgrade provided McLaren with a fertile development direction on which its success in 2024 was based.

An ‘unthinkable’ achievement

While the start to the 2024 season wasn’t nearly as bad as 2023, it still looked like an almost impossible task to prize both titles from Red Bull’s grasp. At the inaugural Bahrain Grand Prix, Max Verstappen won the race by a margin of 22 seconds over teammate Sergio Pérez and an advantage of 48 seconds over the highest-placed McLaren of Norris in sixth. A week later in Saudi Arabia it was still a comfortable 13 seconds over Pérez for Verstappen and 32 seconds over Piastri in fourth.

The reigning champion took four wins from the first five races, a reliability issue opening the door for Carlos Sainz to win in Australia and preventing a clean sheet for Verstappen. At that point in the season, McLaren were third – 55 points behind Ferrari and 99 points from Red Bull – but what came next revolutionized their campaign.

In Miami, the team introduced a number of updates, including a completely revised front wing geometry and an all-new floor. Combined with new front suspension geometry and brake ducts to help direct airflow from the front wing and changes to the upper body to suit the new floor, the car unlocked significant performance, allowing Norris to take the first win of his F1 – career same weekend.

Suddenly McLaren were in contention for race wins, putting Verstappen and Red Bull under pressure they had not felt since their 2021 title battle with Hamilton and Mercedes. The reigning champions hit back with their own upgrade at Imola, but while Verstappen won the race, it was clear that Red Bull had lost ground to McLaren in the development race, exposing some weaknesses with its car concept.

The consistency of Norris’ subsequent strong results saw him force his way into title contention with Verstappen, a championship that was finally conceded on Saturday night in Las Vegas. However, it is in the constructors’ position where McLaren’s turnaround shines brightest.

Since the Miami Grand Prix, the Woking-based team has outscored Red Bull by 152 points, largely due to Pérez’s struggles in the second RB20, while Norris has scored 282 points to Verstappen’s 293. Given where the team was at the start of season, both seen as significant achievements by Stella.

“If we take out the first couple of races of the season before we deliver the Miami upgrades, then we see we have a track from a drivers’ championship point of view that means Lando could compete with Max,” Stella said last weekend, reflecting over this year’s championship. “This is one of those unthinkable achievements that we have to positively acknowledge at McLaren, and when I say unthinkable, unthinkable to think where we were just 18 months ago.”

Does McLaren have the best car in F1?

McLaren’s strong performances since Miami have led many to suggest it has a better car than any other team in F1. This is an accolade many drivers often struggle against as it suggests they should be winning all the time and puts the spotlight on them as individuals when they are not.

Norris is no different and while he has praised his team for the work they have achieved this year, he often points out that either Ferrari, Red Bull or Mercedes are faster in certain circumstances. Speaking in Las Vegas, Stella agreed that McLaren only has the fastest car on certain track layouts and reiterated that his team’s consistency and constant improvement has often been underestimated.

“For me, when we talk about reviewing options, I also want to review that since we delivered lap times to the car in Miami, McLaren has far outperformed all other competitors,” Stella said. “So I think that although we have opportunities, the amount of points we have scored – not necessarily because we have had the best car, as I keep repeating, because we had the best car at a few events, not all – that’s just because the team and drivers raced to very high standards.

“We take these high standards as a positive foundation, as the foundation to keep building. And to keep building, you definitely have to look at what you haven’t done perfectly. But that’s what we do all the time. This is where our culture works very well and hopefully there won’t be many opportunities left in the latter part of the season, but at the moment we are extremely happy with what we have been able to achieve and with the standards we has had all season.”

A glaring weakness was exposed in Las Vegas, where both Norris and Piastri struggled to keep the front tires from graining. Due to understeer in low-speed corners, Norris said it had been a hallmark of McLaren for “six years” and was particularly evident in the cool conditions last weekend.

“I think there are some McLaren characteristics that we have improved over time,” said Stella. “We’ve certainly been able to deliver a competitive car that can win races, but can win races at a certain kind of circuit. And some of those inherent limitations, especially with the behavior of the front end, still come up sometimes , when the track layout or grip level or downforce level means you need to get a certain response from the front end, and at the moment that response from the front end is not able to offer our drivers.”

Can McLaren close the constructors’ title?

The high-speed corners and relatively high temperatures in Qatar should mean there is no such repeat at Sunday’s penultimate race of the season. The Lusail Circuit should suit McLaren’s strengths and allow the team to maximize its results ahead of the final round the following weekend in Abu Dhabi.

To be crowned champions in Qatar, McLaren need to overtake Ferrari by 21 points (and not be overtaken by Red Bull by eight points), and while such a points difference is possible on a sprint weekend where a maximum of 59 points is on offer, Ferrari’s form three of the last four races have outscored McLaren’s. Stella is wary of getting complacent ahead of the final two races and expects the title race to be on the line.

“It’s true and I’ve said myself that Qatar and Abu Dhabi should be a territory more suited to the way we’ve designed our car,” he said. “But I think at the same time that we must make sure that the level of the top teams in Formula 1 in 2024 is, in my opinion, unprecedented. I really cannot remember a season in Formula 1 where four teams operated at such a high level Not only because they are able to win, but they are able to dominate like Mercedes did (in Las Vegas) with flawless weekends.

“It means for the team that yes, we go to Qatar thinking the car can do well, but if we think it’s an easy ride, we’re going to be hit by reality. So we go there knowing, that we must maximize the car’s potential If we do that, then the car should certainly spend quite a lot of time where it is designed to perform.

“But I can’t, to be honest, I can’t recognize that I would expect Ferrari, certainly even Red Bull, Mercedes, I think they will have a lot of information from this weekend also to be able to win in Qatar So it’s a very interesting – much more than I would have liked – last part of the season, I always try to make things boring but it’s not.