The once mighty Red Bull Racing which smashed F1 records left right and centre last season are in trouble. Little did we realise that following Max fourth win in five races this year, he would win just three in the next eleven.

In fact the next time out after the event in Shanghai, Lando Norris claimed his maiden win in Formula One but McLaren remained 115 points behind the world championship winning team. 

Following Max’s woeful showing in Monza, the team from Woking closed the gap to just eight points and now have to be considered favourites for the constructors title. Even Max himself admitted after the event that Red Bull are unlikely to win the constructors champion ship now.

 

 

 

Verstappen accepts Red Bull may lose both championships

“At the moment, both championships are not realistic,” said the world champion. “It’s up to the team to come with lot of changes with the car. Because we basically went from a very dominant car to an undriveable car in the space of, what, six to eight months?”

While McLaren have gained plaudits in the paddock for their remarkable progress there have been cracks in the facade of their track side operations and the team’s philosophy over giving both their drivers equal treatment is beginning to look somewhat questionable.

Lando Norris is the only realistic potential challenger to Max Verstappen in the drivers title race but the team have repeatedly stated they will not favour him over his team mate.

The British driver was forced to give up the lead of the race in Hungary to his team mate Oscar Piastri because the Lando had benefitted from the undercut during a round of pitstops. This cost him seven points in his pursuit of Verstappen and set off a debate over McLaren’s internal strategy.

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McLaren miss a trick in Monza

In Monza Norris started the race from pole position but was hijacked at turn four by his team mate breaking later and taking the lead. The result was Lando was also passed by Charles Leclerc causing him to burn through his tyres too quickly as he attempted to retake the position.

As it happened were naive and failed to split their tyre strategy stopping both drivers twice for fresh rubber whilst Leclerc pitted only once and held on to win the race.

Oscar Piastri noted after the race the graining on the Ferrari’s tyres which he was suffering too, went away the further Leclerc went on his second set of tyres. The Aussie rued the fact he had not thought this was possible and had he remained on a one stop as did Leclerc, this would probably been the case for him too.

With neither McLaren driver set to win the race, it appeared logical the team would switch their drivers to Gove Norris an extra three points in his title bid. But the call never came and team boss Andreas Stella was left facing some awkward questions.

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McLaren boss didn’t believe they could beat Red Bull

When asked why McLaren had not switched the order of their drivers, he replied: “We did not consider that. We considered other ways during the race to make sure Lando had his own opportunities, but we didn’t consider the swap, because we were still willing to put as much pressure as possible on Leclerc to eventually induce him to have a problem with the front left like a lock-up in one of the chicanes.”

With ten laps to go it appeared possible Piastri could hunt down Leclerc and take the win but as the Aussie admitted after the race he realised with three laps to go this would not be possible as the Ferrari tyre degradation had another been as bad as expected.

So why didn’t McLaren switch their drivers given a race win was not at stake and it would have meant Norris was even closer to Verstappen?

Lando is now 62 points behind Max, but this could have been ten points less with just eight races to go. And it seems McLaren are realising they may be in the hunt for both championships this year which has caused Andreas Stella to admit they will now shift how they will go about things until the end of the season.

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Norris claims Piastri ‘too aggresive’

Norris was clearly upset after the race in Italy and claimed he could have braked later to prevent the Piastri overtake but they would both have “hit each other and possibly been out of the race.”

Stella was forced to admit the team would review their ‘papaya rules’ which state the drivers can race, but not risk colliding with each other. He also suggested in “50-50 situations” or in cases where “Lando may need a bit of extra support from the team, we are going to give it”.

Yet the devil is in the detail as Stella explained he would not do anything which was “unreasonable” to Piastri – but this simply means having to have the difficult conversation and persuading Oscar to be in agreement.

The McLaren boss appeared to admit that before Monza the team didn’t believe Lando was capable of catching Verstappen, but with the world champion qualifying just seventh and finishing in P6, this too has now changed inside the McLaren camp.

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Stella believes title races now on

“We were a little cautious, even before Monza, but now we can see that McLaren can compete at circuits where last year we were not competitive,” admitted Stella.

“It is a very competitive package overall and this could be a very important weapon for Lando in particular in the quest for the championship.”

Of course long standing F1 fans remember Rob Smedley who was Felipe Massa’s race engineer at Ferrari issuing the message to his driver, “Fernando is faster than you.” Basically a team order to Massa to let his team mate through.

McLaren are unlikely to be this blunt with Piastri, but there is a definite shift in the McLaren policy coming which will favour Lando Norris. 

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McLaren will now switch drivers in favour of Norris

 

“Without Leclerc, Lando and Oscar would have been close enough that we could have played with some other variables,” Stella said of this race. So what does this mean?

Allowing Norris to undercut his team mate is the obvious solution, though ironically this is why the team ordered Lando to allow Oscar back into the lead in Hungary. But as Stella admits the landscape has changed since then and McLaren now believe Norris has a real shot at overtaking Verstappen in the drivers’ title race.

“But we will review all these things for the next races,” Stella concludes. “And if we come to the conclusion together that swapping is the right thing to do, then we will do it.”

Its time for McLaren to join the big boys F1 club mentally and do whatever it takes to win races and championships, despite the hurt feelings of one of their drivers.

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Alonso criticises latest FIA ruling

The new era of the FIA which began post Jean Todt’s twelve year reign as president has been typified by a number of clampdowns in Formula One, some of which have not gone down well in the paddock.

Within days of Mohamed Ben Sulayem being appointed as the new president of the motorsport’s governing body, Lewis Hamilton was in the cross hairs for refusing to attend the FIA end of season gala. 

The top three drivers each year are mandated to attend the annual presentation yet Hamilton refused to go following the decisions by the FIA’s race director Michael Massi during the Abu Dhabi finale which resulted in a last lap duel for the championship between Verstappen and the seven times champion… READ MORE