Photo Credit: McLaren Racing
Since McLaren’s mid season turn around in pace, they have arguable been Red Bull’s most consistent closest challenger.
In qualifying for the United States Grand Prix at COTA, Lando Norris was a mere tenth of a second in P2 behind polesitter Charles Leclerc. Again in Brazil Norris showed extreme speed in qualifying trim, this time coming up trumps with Pole Position in the Sprint Shootout, qualifying half a tenth ahead of the World Champion.
During the Brazilian Grand Prix, Englishman Norris was able to stay close to Verstappen for the majority of the race, trade fast times with the Red Bull and ultimately concluding the race just eight seconds behind the 26-year-old.
Norris after the race explained how in the final stages of the race he fell off the pace, struggling with his tyres.
“I’m not far behind for the first 10-15 laps in but that final phase, I just drop off a bit too much,” said the 24-year-old.
McLaren’s Team Principal Andrea Stella has now claimed that his team would be challenging Red Bull in race trim but for the fact McLaren struggle a bit more with tyre wear compared to the Milton Keynes-based squad.
“I think the difference is mainly in terms of lap time on used tyres, we have seen that in new tyres, we can fight for position,” explained Stella.
“But as soon as the tyres degrade, then it would appear like Max, Red Bull, they can just have less degradation. The tyres were degrading maybe one-tenth every two laps,” said the Italian.
“It’s a significant amount of degradation and if you can limit that, after 10 laps in a stint, this is tenths of a second, so I think that’s where they are superior at the moment.”
Thinking forward into 2024 and Stella is confident his team have solutions in place for next year’s challenger to address their tyre wear issues as they can’t changes these issues with the MCL60.
“Where we think the difference is made, we can’t do very much with this car. The car has improved with the Singapore upgrade in terms of tyre management, but not enough to be able to compete, especially when degradation is high,” said Stella.
With the spectacle of Las Vegas for this weekend’s race, a new track, very cold conditions and a lot of unknowns, predicting where McLaren stack up in race trim against Red Bull and others could be as difficult picking the winning number in Roulette.
