Latest Episode | Cut To The Race Podcast
McLaren believes its low-speed improvements on its MCL38 will not affect its high-speed performance ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.
McLaren have been fighting for race wins this season (Image Credit: Clive Rose/Getty Images)The Woking-based outfit has had a heavy emphasis on improving its performance through low-speed corners. The recent upgrades has achieved just that, propelling the team to race-winning challengers.
Despite the foucs on low-speed performance, McLaren does not believe it will compromise the this weekend in Barcelona. The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is a high-speed circuit.
Previous years has seen McLaren perform at its best at high-speed circuits. However, this season has had more of an emphasis on low-speed performance, since the upgrades that were brought to the Miami Grand Prix, which Norris managed to win.
The upgrade package improved the car in all corners, but the made the biggest step in low-speed – which the team still doesn’t have the answer for as to why.
It has been a challenge for teams to build a car that is good through both low and high-speed corners, leading to an uncertainty on McLaren’s chances this weekend. However, the Woking team are not panicking ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.
No reason fo McLaren not to be challenging at the front
Oscar Piastri has acknowledged that teams have closed the gap in high-speed performance to them. However, the Australian sees no reason as to why they can’t challenge for the race win.
“I think we can still be confident,” he said. “I wouldn’t say we’re weak in high speed, it’s just that others have probably caught up a little bit.
“I’m pretty confident we’ll be somewhere towards the front as well. Red Bull will probably be a bit stronger than they have been, but we’ll be in the fight.”
Norris has been fighting Verstappen a lot since the upgrades brought in Miami (Image Credit: Clive Rose/Getty Images)What’s the reason for the low-speed gains?
Despite intially being unsure why they made massive improvements in low-speed corners with the Miami package, team principal Andrea Stella says the team now understand how. However, the Italian refused to explain the reason to keep its competitive advantage. The McLaren boss said:
“We are starting to understand that some of the things we were working on unlocked some of the important behaviours of the car, which become relevant for low-speed corners.
“But that is information that we don’t necessarily want to share because we don’t want competitors to look into that.”
“I think for us internally, it’s important that some of the work we have done over the previous month seems to kind of have delivered because we are not at the end of the road in terms of this line of development.
“There’s a few more things we can do, and that’s what we are concentrating on for further updates this season and obviously the 2025 car.”
McLaren are currently third in the constructors’ championship, hoping to close the gap to Ferrari in second. The Woking team are currently 40 points behind the Maranello team.
Feature Image Credit: Chris Graythen via Getty Images
