McLaren has arrived. Only 42 points separate it from first place in the constructors' championship currently occupied by Red Bull. Andrea Stella's team from Miami onwards has demonstrated that it has a car capable of competing on every track without particular difficulties but various errors between strategies and drivers have contributed to giving McLaren the nickname "wasteful". If before first place in the constructors' championship could have been a dream, now it is a clear reality, an opportunity that McLaren, after the many difficulties, cannot afford to throw away. Suffice it to say that Mercedes, with a car that is significantly inferior to the MCL38, has obtained 3 victories in the last 5 races, McLaren only 1. However, it is also true that McLaren has practically no longer brought updates from Miami, a topic on which team principal Andrea Stella he wanted to focus.
McLaren and winning updates
Among the four top teams, McLaren is the only one to have benefited from the substantial package of updates brought to Miami. Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes have in fact had to go back with development, not finding good results between the simulations and reality. Just in the last race weekend before the summer break, in Belgium, Mercedes brought a new fund, which was discarded after the first day of free practice. The difficulties of Ferrari and Red Bull in particular allowed McLaren to slowly climb up the rankings until they were close to first place.
Since the beginning of the year, the Woking team has decided to make few but substantial developments, concentrating resources to obtain a result as noteworthy as it was. At the moment this strategy seems to have paid off. However, having found these results and seeing first place so close to McLaren for the second part of the season would prefer to bring updates in more stages.
More updates on the way for the title race
But for the title you need more. In addition to the performance of the drivers, in particular Norris the McLaren team principal has been in difficulty in recent races Andrea Stella spoke on the topic of updates.
Stella said McLaren will have updates on more weekends in the second half of the season: “Red Bull has brought more developments to the track so far in terms of physical parts delivered than we have – says Stella – but certainly, I can speak for McLaren, it seems that we are now in a position to exploit some of these developments that we have made and I expect that for the second part of the season we will have, at various times, some new parts. In a way, I'm surprised we've been so competitive, considering we haven't brought many new parts to the track since Miami.
So that means obviously the Miami update was important, but there are some updates that will arrive in the second part of the season."
Unlike its competitors, McLaren will have to bring updates to unlock further potential, not to solve problems as Ferrari and Red Bull will certainly have to do. The Austrian team also ran into difficulty on a seemingly friendly track, such as Spa. Ferrari has yet to resolve the bouncing problems affecting the SF-24. McLaren, despite being in the ideal position, is unable to capitalize as much as it should, losing opportunities that it could regret at the end of the championship. The team pays for its lack of experience in fighting for top positions, and this is highlighted even more by the victories achieved by Mercedes and Red Bull, teams that have won and fought for the title more recently.
Source statements: FormulaPassion
