F1 | McLaren: The team is not yet as competitive as the MCL38

The problems that are preventing McLaren from realizing the results within the reach of the technical package have emerged in a rare (but not unprecedented) scenario. A question of speed, in this case the speed of growth. Having a winning car is the first requirement to aim for success, but alone it is not enough. The McLaren case is emblematic, a single-seater that from the Miami Grand Prix has become an absolute, has not corresponded to an equally fast growth of the team.

Andrea Stella, always very clear and analytical in his statements, has underlined on several occasions how the team is composed of many people who are professionally young or in any case with little specific experience in the role they cover. McLaren made the definitive technical leap in the Miami Grand Prix, from that moment Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had a car at their disposal capable of constantly fighting for stage victories, but victories (in eleven races) have only arrived three.

Even though the points left on the field are many, Norris has still managed to reduce his gap from Verstappen, and today, at sixty-two points from Max, a world championship thought, however hidden, is there. Up to now McLaren has left the field free to its drivers, Piastri and Norris are only forbidden to ‘touch’ each other and to put at risk the overall result of the team, for the rest up to today they have been free to race.

A mistake? Back to square one. McLaren started the season with good ambitions, but certainly not the world championship. The changed scenario from Miami onwards has also disoriented the team itself, and on certain occasions it seemed to suffer a counterattack from itself. Some mistakes in the race strategies and a driver management that has remained unchanged, with Norris and Piastri taking to the track with the same rules of engagement as when they were fighting for fifth place.

When Piastri was stripped of the lead in Hungary due to an undercut by Norris forced by the team, McLaren made the most correct decision at the time: not to take away Oscar’s first and deserved victory in F1. At that moment Norris was 84 points behind Verstappen, and above all no one could have imagined that between Spa, Zandvoort and Monza, Max would not return to success.

The dream of the constructors’ championship was taking shape, the dream of the drivers’ title was seen as a mirage. A month and a half later the scenario has partly changed, Verstappen is still the leader of the drivers’ standings, Norris his closest pursuer, but with the closing of the gap between the two the chances are increasing that the team could ask Piastri (if necessary) to help his teammate. For the team this will also be a first, a necessary step to confirm itself as a top team.

Along with the significant increase in performance of the single-seater, the other variable that has taken the team a bit by surprise is precisely that relating to Piastri. His growth has been as impressive as that of the MCL38, to the point of presenting a problem (‘sweet’ in many respects) on the table of Andrea Stella and Zak Brown that they had taken into account for next season.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri celebrate with the McLaren team the double podium at Monza

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Oscar was strongly desired by the McLaren tandem, on paper the two-year period 2023/24 was supposed to be one of progressive growth alongside Norris, exactly as Lando did in 2019/20 with Carlos Sainz. But in this last case the atmosphere has always been very calm, the stakes were a podium finish for the entire season, for the rest the two fought for the points zone, and in these cases knives don’t fly.

Today the situation is different. Norris and Piastri at the start of every Grand Prix know they can climb to the top step of the podium because the MCL38 allows them to do so, the pressure has increased accordingly and the Stella-Brown tandem is now called upon to anticipate the times. The message that was conveyed after the Italian Grand Prix was quite clear, the moment in which the team could ask Piastri to give Norris a hand is getting closer and closer, especially if Red Bull does not show signs of life.

McLaren had taken it into account, in some ways it was a problem that they hoped to have one day, but Brown and Stella would not have bet a single pound that this problem would be on the table by 2024. Since the Miami Grand Prix, a lot has changed at McLaren, objectives, ambitions and also problems. When a single-seater is absolute, the whole world that revolves around it is called upon to keep up.