For years, McLaren had grip problems in long, low speed corners, along with a lack of aerodynamic efficiency that reduced its maximum speeds. Its announced 2023 season improvements at the Austrian and Singapore grands prix added a lot of performance in the high-speed sections, making it the second best car on the grid in certain places.
However, even throughout 2024, its weaknesses seemed to remain present until its first major update in the Miami Grand Prix, where Lando Norris achieved his first victory in the category. On that track, where the team had a car with all the improvements for the British and half for Oscar Piastri, although Ferrari did not introduce their entire arsenal, they were fast in high downforce curves, but those from Maranello continued to dominate the slow traction turns.
Carlos Sainz was also the fastest in the fast corners of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prixbut both he and Charles Leclerc lost a lot of time on the straights against Red Bull and McLaren due to what was described as a poor power deployment strategy.
However, curiously, while the Italians were faster on the straights and at Tabac in the Monaco Grand Prix, The Woking ones held up very well in some low speed sections and they were faster than the pole position driver, the Monegasque, through the hairpin and chicane.
“It seems that the car we took to Miami behaves well at low speeds, almost beyond what we expected,” said the group’s director, Andrea Stella. “In Miami, low speed predominates, and perhaps in Monaco, the sector that cost us the most was the first, medium or high, so it seems that the panorama of our competitiveness is finally beginning to change, where low speed is no longer seems like a clear weakness.”
More than the atypical event in the streets of the Principality, the Canadian Grand Prix It will perhaps be the best test to verify whether they achieved their objectives, given the predominant combination of low speed curves and long straights, where aerodynamic efficiency levels are key. With its numerous chicanes and hairpins, the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve is a loop that accentuates everything the team used to struggle with, without offering it the kind of high-downforce direction changes it could have caught up on.
Lando Norris was cautious about the team’s prospects in Canadian territorysince the high demands on traction and grip perhaps favor Ferrari, which is better on bumpy tracks: “Our car has performed well on different types of circuits, but we know that in Canada we have a lot of work. It is likely that our rivals will be strong “.
Nevertheless, Andrea Stella warned that McLaren still has “work to do” regarding the curbs and potholes, although the Montreal track, which was resurfaced, should be smoother than before: “We are not entirely satisfied with the behavior on the curbs and potholes. It will require more significant development instead of a simple adaptation of what we have available now in the car.
“It is clear that we played with the set-up, but it does not seem that we are able to achieve the same behavior in gear and on the curbs that we see in other cars. And our drivers are quite convinced that other cars seem to be able to get up to speed. pianos with more confidence,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Italian was confident that the team had not sacrificed its performance in high downforce conditions to fix its deficiencies at low speed, but The next appointments will be proof of this: “It is an objective of our development to ensure that we do not compromise some strengths of the car to pursue other characteristics.”
“That is not possible all the time, but ultimately, it is part of the quality of the development that each team will carry out,” he commented before going to the Canadian Grand Prix, which in 2023 was the last with the “old man” car, where they were ninth with Lando Norris, and finished outside the points with Oscar Piastri.
Additional reporting by Jon Noble and Stuart Codling
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