McLaren: the difference between Norris and Piastri is in tire management

On Sunday, McLaren took a step back, after doing a good job in qualifying with the second row of Lando Norris and sixth place with Oscar Piastri, who lost more of the weekend than his teammate. Andrea Stella’s squadron also proved itself as the third squadron in Japan, almost ten behind the performance of SF-24., while last September in Suzuka he showed an advantage of more than six tenths over the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. The hope for the weekend was to overtake the Italian rivals, especially given the difficulty of Sainz and Leclerc on Saturday, but in the race the speed of the Spaniard and the great management of the first phase by the Monegasque put the McLaren strategists in a difficult situation..

McLaren: in the race the slow speed problems that the new tire hides have been highlighted

The race conditions did not favor Lando Norris, who was “caught” between the two Ferraris in the second phase and forced the Englishman to return to the pit after completing only 13 laps on hard tires to try to slow down Leclerc; The Ferrari wall anticipated this strategy to bring Monegasque back in and get fourth place. Andrea Stella explained this option: “The time of the second stop was forced by Leclerc and Carlos was also approaching. So Carlos would pass Lando, and Lando would lose time. At a glance, the fourth place can be found, but McLaren didn’t want to sacrifice their chances of finishing on the podium like this: “If we had stopped trying to get on the podium, we could have finished ahead of Leclerc and Lando, but we weren’t ready to do that”confirming that the hope was to hit two of Vasseur’s drivers. McLaren suffered more damage than Red Bull and Ferrari as the heat rose compared to Friday and Saturday, and according to the Italian TP leaving one would not be possible: “Having two hard sets, one station was not considered, in fact, it was considered under the red flag regime.” But also from the point of view, Mercedes, with the same damage as McLaren yesterday, showed that leaving one was not easy: “Even when Mercedes started using hard tires, we thought maybe they would try to finish on the two hard tires, but the damage was too great. And Mercedes also had to stop twice”.

McLaren got better results in qualifying, mainly taking advantage of Ferrari’s problems with cold on the flying lap, but the gap to Red Bull remained unchanged. where to compete, However, the papaya duo lost two places each. In the first four races, the delay compared to the world champions can be counted by around ten or five per lap, in the next part of the championship there will be tracks with slower corners from the Chinese GP where McLaren will be more affected. than more suitable circuits such as those just discussed. The deficits in the more technical sections are most evident in Sunday’s race, and Stella herself confirmed: “I think the soft tire has reduced some of the problems we have at the moment”then explained, “For example at low speed, when you have a new ball with a lot of grip the corner is shorter, and you have the ability to compensate for the gaps”. On the flying lap Norris got a gap of less than one tenth from Red Bull, time during the race the gap grew to several tens of laps in just two corners.

Piastri is still struggling with damage, but has improved compared to last year

Norris’ weekend was excellent: 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 currently have something more than McLaren in terms of performance. On the other hand, Oscar Piastri was disappointed with his performance, not reaching the level of his colleague on the track where he worked hard last year as well. According to Stella, the explanation lies in damage control of tires: “When the damage is large, it takes experience and even a year to improve the damage by only 5%, which makes a big difference”, but the Italian preferred to focus on the progress made by the young Australian: “Last year, in Suzuka, Oscar qualified very well, but he struggled a bit in the race, definitely more than today. In a few races Oscar has come a long way in terms of tire management better”. Understanding the tires will be fundamental in taking a sure step, even in qualifying, and reaching your potential and always competing with your teammate.

In Japan and Australia improvements were seen in the pit stop phase, with an improvement of half a second compared to the first two events of the season.; in four races McLaren recorded three slow stops, more than 3.5 seconds, second after the poor Sauber in this category. Last year, with the great rivalry found between Spielberg and Silverstone, the mechanics of the Papaya team also made great improvements, becoming the third fastest in the second part of the season behind only Red Bull and Ferrari unattainable; this year, if the progress is the same in the pits, the Stella team can think of always competing with Ferrari and Red Bull at the stops, but above all we need more consistency and fewer mistakes. The next event in the China promises to be tougher for McLaren, where Mercedes and Aston Martin could come close; after the first month of racing, the two home teams find themselves at a safe distance of more than 30 points in the standings from McLaren, with an average gap of three to ten tenths, confirmed in Japan despite the first updates from the neighbors . at Silverstone, awaiting the first updates on the MCL38.