He even admitted that Ferrari’s negative result in China was a surprise even for its direct opponents Lando Norris. After the race which saw him finish in second place behind the dominator Max Verstappen, the young Englishman confided that he had bet with his engineers that he would finish about 35 seconds behind the Ferraris. A prediction that was later proven wrong by the facts: at a certain point Charles Leclerc even found himself behind the McLaren number 4 thanks to the Safety Car, but since the restart on Hard tyres, he never had the pace to worry his rival. Having bet badly was probably the only mistake – in addition to the imperfect start in the Sprint Race on Saturday morning – of the weekend by a Lando who was very solid in pace and tire management, contrary to expectations on the eve.
MCLAREN UPDATES
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A surprise, in fact, given that McLaren, like Ferrari and Mercedes – but not Red Bull and Aston Martin, who have already brought a substantial package of aerodynamic developments to Japan – has not yet debuted the first updates to the single-seater. And if the fans of the red are anxiously awaiting the Imola stage to see the evolved version of the SF-24, albeit with some previews already expected in Miami, the Woking team has set the debut of the long-awaited innovations for the GP in Floridawhich could rewrite the balance of power in the fight behind Verstappen. Or maybe even question Red Bull’s leadership.
SPEAK STAR
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This is what the McLaren team principal hopes for, Andrea Stellaat the head of the wall of the Woking team since December 2022. The engineer from Orvieto has in fact raised the stakes precisely while waiting for the updates that will debut on the English single-seater on the weekend of the Miami GP, at the beginning of May: “It would seem that we have lost ground to Red Bull this year, but that’s because we had gained a lot on them at a time when they had stopped developing the car. In the long term, however, our trajectory is very good. And if we were to continue like this for the next 12 months, then… Why not? We could still catch up with Red Bull. You love me? We will finally have our first round of developments for our car. There will also be attempts to improve tire degradation, we’ll see if it will be possible to take a step forward in that direction.”
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DECISIVE DEGRADATION
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Precisely the wear of the Pirellis was one of the factors that most put Norris and Piastri in difficulty in competition during this season, with the exception of the Shanghai weekend where, however, perhaps it was mostly Ferrari that didn’t find the right thing in terms of set-up. On the contrary, the MCL38 still proved to be a very competitive car, especially in qualifying: a sign that it manages to transfer the right energy to the tires to bring them up to temperature in the single lap, so much so that in the last three Q3s (also considering the Chinese Sprint) Norris he is always placed behind both Ferraris. Counteracting this characteristic, however, is the risk of putting too much stress on the compounds during races, precisely the problem that the McLaren engineers want to solve as early as Miami. “There – concluded Stella – we will have very high temperatures and the track could stress the rear tires especially, given that there are many low-speed corners where traction counts”.
