F1 | McLaren podium in China: the 3 elements with which he beat Ferrari

If you went back two weeks, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren had pretty definite ideas about what the roles in Shanghai might be. The Maranello and Brackley teams looked at the Chinese weekend with more positivity than that of Suzuka, unlike McLaren, who were more negative about the MCL38's possibilities. Despite this, in the end the British single-seater proved to be the most competitive.

Andrea Stella had not hidden a certain concern even before arriving in China, because the layout of the track featured many long corners and multiple slow areas, sections where at the beginning of the year McLaren showed some more difficulties than its rivals.

Clearly this was a discussion made on paper, because in reality Formula 1 arrived in Shanghai with many unknowns, not having been to this track for five years now, making the data accumulated in the past not very productive, especially considering that it was the first time with the ground effect car. Furthermore, there was the puzzle of the asphalt: no one, not even Pirelli, was aware of the conditions of the road surface, on which it was later discovered that a light layer of bitumen had been poured which made the grip conditions during the lap rather inconsistent .

However, at the end of the weekend the result is clear and without appeals: among the three teams mentioned, McLaren is the one that showed the best pace in the race, a bit surprisingly, because Ferrari itself expected to be more competitive in the long run distance despite an underwhelming qualification. Aside from the position gained under the Safety Car against Sergio Perez, the pace both in the first stint on the medium tire and in the second on the hard tire was excellent, never inferior to the Red.

The step ensured greater flexibility

On these elements, Lando Norris built a podium that put the English team in the position of second force. The even more interesting aspect was perhaps the flexibility shown by McLaren in this Grand Prix, especially because in Australia and Japan this theme had disappeared, putting the team in a defensive position rather than an attacking one.

Looking back at the British driver's race, one of the most important moments was the overtaking of Fernando Alonso, which was effectively concluded as soon as the Spaniard left Sergio Perez's DRS zone. Going back about 24 hours, Carlos Sainz had shown some signs of difficulty in overtaking his Aston Martin compatriot, so much so that he had to invent a maneuver outside of turn seven, with a duel which however ended negatively for both. On the contrary, Norris wasted no time during the race, overtaking the Asturian at the first opportunity after the latter had lost the chance to use the mobile wing.

A key overtaking because, being able to express his pace freely, the Englishman immediately began to pull ahead of his rivals, creating a protective buffer of over six seconds over Charles Leclerc which guaranteed great strategic freedom. Knowing that recovering those lost seconds would be a difficult task, Ferrari tried to play on a tactical level, going from two stops to a single pit stop, but McLaren was not caught unprepared. When the engineers of the Woking team understood the Rossa's plans, they immediately responded accordingly, raising the times enough to be able to extend and cover the Cavallino's strategy, but without experiencing any performance gaps.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Although he was clearly not trying to force before, this passage also played a key role, because it put Norris in a position to make the most of the entry of the Virtual Safety Car, stop and maintain his position on Leclerc.

“We didn't expect the podium because, to tell the truth, yesterday in the sprint we didn't have a pace that would have allowed us to finish ahead of the Ferrari, which was in our expectations,” explained Stella, taking the sprint race as a reference, in but the potential step was masked by the fact that Norris found himself in traffic.

“So the podium is a bit of a surprise, especially in terms of pace. I think in qualifying we can be strong when we have the new soft tyre, we can do a good job. However, when we are in the race, we tend to lose a bit of performance”, added the Team Principal, underlining how in fact the new tire tends to cover some of the car's limits in certain critical areas, with a concept already expressed after the Grand Prix in Japan.

“Today, however, I think that the track conditions, the cold and the lack of sun contributed to keeping the rear tires under control. And therefore we were able to exploit the car's strengths, as we saw in qualifying.”

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, 2nd position, takes the checkered flag at the finish line

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Cold, asphalt and track characteristics

Stella's last statement leaves room for two other elements, namely the environmental conditions and the characteristics of the track, combined with an asphalt which in fact proved to be an unknown for all the teams. Only on the first day did track temperatures reach 40°C, in FP1, a session in which McLaren worked mainly on the hard compound, the compound which later proved to be decisive in the race.

On the contrary, Ferrari chose a different work program from the competition, choosing to run only on the soft, perhaps with the idea of ​​keeping two sets of new tires from the other compounds for the rest of the weekend. In fact, therefore, the Woking team had already experimented with the hard tyre, running with temperatures over 10°C higher than those recorded in the sprint and the race. For Stella, therefore, one of the fundamental elements was the management of degradation, especially at the rear. Taking an average of the data from the last stint, it emerges that the times of Leclerc and Norris were closer in the first sector, the one where the Monegasque had suffered in qualifying, while he expanded in the other two split times, an aspect that allowed us to extend progressively the advantage.

In short, the difference emerged above all in the lean corners and in the last corner, areas where a good front end is needed to give the rider handling, but also a rear end that guarantees good stability without causing the rear end to slip. From this point of view, the McLaren Team Principal believes Shanghai has lost part of its “front limited” characteristics seen in the past, in favor of a limitation that moved more towards the rear. This, combined with the low temperatures, helped preserve the tires over long distances, even on asphalt that guaranteed little grip. A different scenario from Suzuka where, despite the cold, the tires were continually put under stress by continuous fast zones which transmitted a lot of energy to the tyres.

“I think that Shanghai proved to be a track that was not very limiting for the front, it no longer seems to be as difficult for the front as it was in the past. Furthermore, the conditions helped maintain grip at the rear, because it didn't overheat today,” added Stella.

Telemetry comparison between Norris and Leclerc in the Chinese GP: note the difference in the corners in the second sector

Photo by: Gianluca D'Alessandro

“So, a combination of factors that helped the performance of our car. I think some changes made to the set-up after the sprint also helped the race pace, because we modified the car with the aim of improving the race pace rather than the qualifying pace, which surprised us a bit considering that However, we did well in qualifying. Overall, though, there were several factors that contributed to our performance, not just one.”

One aspect that Norris himself spoke about after qualifying was that, contrary to what was expected, the MCL38 did not have such a large gap in the very long corners and in the slow areas, areas in which this season too it had shown some signs of difficulty, like in Australia or Saudi Arabia. On the contrary, perhaps Ferrari was punished for being too cautious, partly suffering from difficulties in igniting the tyres, as on the flying lap.

A theme that has already been proposed on other occasions, but which perhaps played an even more decisive role in Shanghai: given the numerous unknowns in terms of asphalt, perhaps the Red team opted for an overly conservative approach to the set-up to protect the tires . Together with the low asphalt temperatures, the harder tires suffered. Although there are few indications, in fact, the gap on the average, despite the various overtakings, is smaller than that recorded on the hard, which is present and constant.