McLaren faces a difficult triplet

An updated floor for Baku (Azerbaijan) had allowed McLaren to take a step forward, Lando Norris arriving in ninth place and at the top of the “others” ranking behind Red Bull, Aston Martin, Ferrari et Mercedes.

But a weekend later in Miami (USA), the two McLarens proved incapable of getting past Q2 and never had the pace necessary to fight for points…

« The main takeaway was that after a satisfactory weekend in Baku from a performance point of view, we were faced with reality, explains Team Principal Andrea Stella. The information obtained in Miami helps us understand that certain areas of development still need to be pursued, such as improving the car apart from the brakes and accelerator.

For now, the car does not work under these conditions. On circuits like this it becomes too big a limitation. We therefore draw important lessons for development. We also had a reliability problem with the car Piastres.

Oscar had to deal with a problem with the hydraulic braking system throughout the race, and he was excellent in his ability to deal with this problem. After locking the tires three or four times, he understood that he had to adapt his way of braking to this problem. So we learned from a performance perspective. We learned from a reliability perspective.

In Miami we would have needed incidents in the race, a safety car or something, but nothing happened. The limits in terms of performance could therefore not be overcome thanks to certain economic elements and we left without any points »

McLaren has Silverstone in its sights!

Realistically, quickly returning to the Top 10 is not going to be easy for the British team, especially since no major developments are planned before tackling the European campaign which starts with three Grands Prix in three weeks (Imola -Monaco-Barcelona).

« What you bring to Imola is what you sort of logged and sent to production a month or two ago, depending on the turnaround time, explains the Italian manager. So it's not like you have a set-up problem and you can react between Miami and Imola.

For now we have more issues related to car specification, package, and these have their own lead time: design, build, production and so on. So what we will have at Imola is what we decided a month ago. Small, minor developments in relation to the step we need to take to be consistently in the points; what is our goal »

When will we see this major breakthrough capable of restoring a little shine to this McLaren orange that has been very dull since the start of the season? “ Definitely before the summer holidays, Stella promises. We are dividing these improvements between Canada and Great Britain. We will avoid Austria because it is a “Sprint” weekend. And given the size of the package, we are not sure we will be able to bring it to a single event. There are quite a few changes to be made, and we will delay the arrival of the new floor until Silverstone »

Zak Brown and Andrea Stella (right) work to put McLaren back at the front of the field. © Xavi Bonilla / DPPI

Is restructuring to blame?

A “delay” in delivery that Norris seemed to attribute to the technical restructuring carried out in Woking (UK) and which would have had the greatest impact on the work and ethics of the team.

« Teamwork, team ethics have always been strong points at McLaren, challenges the one who succeeded Andreas Seidl. Let's say that the cultural element of the team has been strong for several years.

We have worked on this in the past. I don't think this is the reason for our performance deficit. The reason lies more in the design and manufacturing of a fast car. There is always room for improvement.

What we have seen over the past few weeks is a reinvigorated group of people and even greater cohesion. This element of ethics, of culture, of teamwork, has always been a strong point at McLaren. The “good working environment” is what first attracts new members from other teams.

But in itself it is not enough to go to the circuit and be fast. So we need to unite culture and good environment. Ultimately we have to deliver when it comes to designing a fast car »

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