McLaren is the team of the hour in Formula 1. Red Bull has now won both world championship titles early, but McLaren is getting better and better with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. So much so that the British team scored the most points in both Japan and Qatar and now still has a chance of third place in the World Championship behind Red Bull and Mercedes.
Max Verstappen also noticed this. He is impressed by the current performance of the McLaren drivers: “I think as a team they are probably the most consistent when you compare them to the others behind them. And I would say McLaren has the best driver duo of all the teams [hinter Red Bull].”
Verstappen seems to rate Norris/Piastri more highly than, for example, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell at Mercedes or Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz at Ferrari.
What also sets McLaren apart is the now excellent speed of the MCL60 in qualifying and also in the race. The trend has clearly been pointing upwards since the Austria update. “That’s why it will be interesting until the end of the season and especially at the beginning of the new season [2024]”Until we see who’s standing where,” says Verstappen.
Verstappen: “McLaren is getting closer and closer to us”
At the moment, however, McLaren does not pose an ultimate threat to Red Bull, emphasizes the world champion. In Qatar, Verstappen only beat Piastri and Norris in the Grand Prix by just under five seconds, but “we still had a bit of pace in hand if we needed it,” explains Verstappen.
“I don’t want to belittle McLaren’s form. The team has sold well. We see: McLaren is getting closer and closer to us. So of course we have to try to maintain a certain buffer.”
McLaren has “definitely made great progress” over the course of the season,” says Verstappen. “For us, it’s about maybe improving a little this year, but mainly of course for the coming year.”