While McLaren had an absolutely rough start to the season, their form of late has been impressive to say the least. The team has done almost everything so far: get podiums, sprint poles and sprint wins.
However, there are two key things they haven’t accomplished this season: get a Grand Prix pole position and win a Sunday race.
Photo Credit: McLaren Racing
At one point this past weekend in Sao Paulo, they almost achieved the win, but it just slipped from their grasp.
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella said that the team took the risk and went for broke right after the red flag in lap 1 following a collision between Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen.
Following the red flag, the team thought of the win. They went bold, putting Lando Norris on his one remaining new set of soft tyres at the restart versus Verstappen’s used one.
“I think certainly in terms of our approach, especially after the red flag, we wanted to win it.
“At the start, we put our best set of softs on, so we decided to start on a new set, so we could try and take the lead. And from there, [perhaps] put Verstappen in an unusual position and see what we could do. Maybe we could just cover anytime he pits and so on.”
When Norris couldn’t get the lead in the first few laps, although he got very close into turn 4 on lap 8, the team said that the Brit had to leave a gap to Verstappen to look after his tyres and wade off Fernando Alonso.
“We couldn’t take the lead at the launch. We went very close to doing it on track, but after that our tyres started to overheat and we needed to think about achieving our target lap times, because [Fernando] wasn’t that far behind at that stage and it seemed like he could stay with us.
“Certainly, we tried hard in the first stint. I think after that, Verstappen once again, he had enough of a lead to actually manage the situation.”
Photo Credit: McLaren Racing
Once they switched to mediums, Verstappen gradually pulled away and the hope of a win would have to wait for another day.
“I think anytime we tried to get a little closer, even there were a few laps in the second stint in which we seemed to go [closer], then he could put together a couple of mega laps. After the first stint, there wasn’t very much we could do.
“That’s why we wanted to take the lead on new tyres, and try to change this kind of destiny that would have happened with Verstappen leading the race.”
To add, Stella continued about facing the same fate that he had seen in the sprint on Saturday, saying that the plan was to disturb the Dutchman’s dominance by being aggressive, but they ultimately fell into a very similar position as the sprint.
“We wanted to break this kind of continuity with [Saturday] but unfortunately, we missed it. Not by very much, but maybe one metre, to be able to actually pass. After that, it was pretty much a repeat [of the sprint].”
Apart from Red Bull, McLaren have secured the most points since the summer break. With two more races to go, it is up to Stella and his team to see whether they can get that win that they’ve fought so hard for recently.
