On Sunday, McLaren took a step back after having done a great job in qualifying with the second row of Lando Norris and the sixth position with Oscar Piastri, more subdued over the weekend than his teammate. Andrea Stella’s team also confirmed itself as the third force in Japan, about a tenth behind the performance of the SF-24. At the same time, last September in Suzuka, it had shown an advantage of more than six-tenths over Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
The hope for the weekend was to overtake the Italian rivals, especially considering the difficulties of Sainz and Leclerc on Saturday. Still, in the race, the Spaniard and Monegasque executed a very strong race in terms of management and pace.
MCLAREN: PROBLEMS IN LOW-SPEED THAT ARE HIDDEN BY FRESH TYRES
The race situations did not favour Lando Norris, “trapped” between the two Ferraris in the second stint and forcing the Englishman to return to the pits after completing just 13 laps on the hard tyres to try to undercut Leclerc.
Ferrari’s pit wall anticipated this strategy by bringing the Monegasque back in and securing fourth position. Andrea Stella explained this choice:
“The timing of the second stop was forced by Leclerc, and Carlos was also approaching. So Carlos would have passed Lando, and Lando would have wasted time.”
In hindsight, finishing P4 was possible. However, the Woking-based team wanted to keep fighting for a podium:
“If we had given up trying to get on the podium, we could have finished ahead of Leclerc with Lando. But we were not ready to do so.”
This confirms that McLaren’s aim was to finish ahead of the Ferrari duo. However, tyre degradation was more difficult to manage for the MCL38 as temperatures increased:
“Having two sets of hard tyres, the single stop was not taken into consideration, or rather, it was taken into consideration under the red flag regime.”
However, even Mercedes, who utilised the hard tyres quite aggressively on Sunday, struggled with tyres:
“Even when the Mercedes started on the hard tyres, we thought that perhaps they would try to finish on the two hard ones, but the degradation was too high. And Mercedes also had to make two stops.“
McLaren achieved a better result in qualifying, mainly exploiting Ferrari’s difficulties with the cold on the flying lap. Still, the gap to Red Bull remained unchanged in the race. The papaya duo, meanwhile, lost positions.
In the first four races, McLaren has been roughly four or five-tenths behind Red Bull. In the next series of circuits like Shanghai, that feature more low-speed corners, the British team could face difficulties. The deficit in the more technical sections appears more evident in the Sunday race. Andrea Stella himself confirmed this:
“I think the soft tyre has mitigated some of the difficulties we have at the moment. For example, at low speed, when you have new rubber with a lot of grip, the corner becomes shorter, and you have the grip to compensate for some deficiencies. “
On the flying lap, Norris suffered a gap of less than a tenth from Red Bull. Meanwhile, over a race distance, the gap grew to several tenths per lap in just two corners.
PIASTRI STILL STRUGGLES WITH DEGRADATION, BUT HE HAS IMPROVED COMPARED TO LAST YEAR
Norris’ weekend was very good: the Englishman maximized the car’s potential in qualifying with a good lap, and in the race, he finished behind only the Red Bulls and Ferraris, who, at the moment, have something more than McLaren in terms of performance. On the other hand, Oscar Piastri was disappointed with his performance; not up to the level of his teammate on a track where he also struggled a lot last year.
According to Stella, the explanation lies in the management of tyre degradation:
“When the degradation is so high, it takes experience and even a year to improve the degradation by even just 5%, which makes a huge difference.”
Regardless, the Italian team boss preferred to concentrate on Piastri’s progress:
“Last year in Suzuka, Oscar qualified very well. But then he struggled a bit in the race, certainly much more than today. In just a few races Oscar has come a long way in terms of tire management in the race.”
Understanding the tyres is fundamental to making a definitive step as a driver. This goes for both qualifying and the race.
In Japan and Australia, improvements were seen in the team’s pit stops. There was an improvement of half a second compared to the first two events of the season. So far in 2024, McLaren has recorded three pit stops over 3.5 seconds, second only to Sauber in this category.
Last year, with the team’s progress from Spielberg to Silverstone, McLaren’s pit-stop crew also improved massively. They became the third-best in this category, only behind Red Bull and Ferrari.
If their progression is the same in the pits this year, Stella’s team can think of constantly competing with Ferrari and Red Bull in the stops. Above all, consistency and minimal errors will be essential.
The next event in China promises to be more difficult for McLaren, whereas Mercedes and Aston Martin could get closer. After the first month of racing, the two Mercedes-powered teams find themselves at a safe distance of over 30 points in the standings from McLaren.
As it stands, the average gap is between three and four-tenths, confirmed in Japan despite Aston Martin’s first updates. McLaren’s first upgrades will arrive later in the season.
