McLaren’s weak points
Max Verstappen’s victory at Suzuka has understandably been described as a driver triumphing over the car. Despite being the favorites and with general agreement that McLaren had the best car both in qualifying and race pace, the two papaya cars couldn’t overcome the reigning champion’s resistance, who is now just one point behind championship leader Lando Norris.
It was Norris himself who, in the press conference, tried to partially overturn the narrative of McLaren “throwing away” the win, emphasizing that Red Bull has made progress and isn’t far off the MCL39’s performance. “Our weakness was in the slow corners,” explained the #4 of the Woking team. “[At Suzuka] there were far fewer fast corners, so we lost some of our strengths and had more weaknesses.”
Contrasting views
“It’s clear they’re fast,” Norris reiterated, making no secret of his expectations that Max Verstappen will be competitive everywhere. “I think Oscar and I got a lot out of the car in qualifying. Maybe there was still a bit of margin, but our ideal theoretical times weren’t much better. Max is doing a good job, and Red Bull seems to have made up some ground. But throughout the season they haven’t done badly. If you look at Australia, he was fighting for the win. If you look at China, he wasn’t far off. And this weekend went very well. So I expect [Max] to challenge us every weekend.”
These statements contrast with Max Verstappen’s own view, who reiterated that Red Bull is definitely behind McLaren. The Dutchman also took the opportunity to mock his rivals, suggesting that had he been driving the papaya car, he would have won the Japanese GP even more easily.
Leave a Reply