One race into the new Formula One season and the sport has been transfixed by how smartly McLaren have emerged from the blocks. A quick car is a surprise to no one but what fascinated about Lando Norris’s and Oscar Piastri’s ride is that their single greatest advantage apparently lay not in the science of aerodynamics but rather in the tyres and the dark art of mechanical grip. In which algorithms and alchemy, McLaren appear to have struck gold.
Norris’s win at the season opener in Australia caught the eye, not only with how much pace they showed but in how they achieved it, and it has the other teams worried.
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In qualifying they were comfortably ahead, four-tenths up on nearest rival Max Verstappen. On fragile, soft rubber, McLaren were notably able to keep leaning on their tyres in the last sector of the lap, the point when the rest were losing grip with overheating, worn rubber.
During the stable part of the race, when the rain eased and conditions were equal, Verstappen was able to stay with the McLarens for 16 laps but as his intermediate rubber gave out, he was left flailing, dropping back from five seconds to 15 in just eight laps. But for the rain and the intervention of safety cars, McLaren might have had more than 30 seconds on the field.
This then was clear, while the McLaren is undoubtedly a fast car aerodynamically, with strong downforce – the usual indicator of a dominant ride – it also enjoys an extra edge in being easier on its tyres than the opposition. A crucial factor that allows the drivers to push harder for longer to exploit their strong aero.
That key factor was acknowledged by McLaren’s team principal, Andrea Stella. “We saw that the car interacts with the tyres very well,” he said. “We were able to open a gap which I don’t think is the car itself only, it is also how gentle our car is on the tyres.”
That tyres play such a pivotal role is not new, indeed it has been a feature of the last two decades in F1. When they were brought in as F1’s sole supplier, Pirelli were given the task of manufacturing tyres that would degrade with use to impose a strategic element into the racing, by employing different compounds and ensuring pit stops had to be taken. Degradation, often depending on car and driving style, leading to tyre management phases – which drivers intensely dislike – meant an integral part of the game became how the cars work their tyres.
How quickly they can be brought up to operating temperature, how hard they have to be worked to do so, how easily they stay in that window, all play into the rate and attrition of said degradation and therefore the mechanical grip they enjoy can become a key differentiator. Simply put, cars that are easier on their tyres can push harder for longer before the performance falls away.
Melbourne was a case in point for McLaren, who may have made a significant break from the rest of the paddock in this field. Most notably, they appear to have achieved this feat with almost no compromise, an almost unheard of sweet spot. Usually cars that enjoy longevity in their tyres struggle to warm them up, leaving them vulnerable over a single lap in qualifying, in the cold and at starts and restarts. The McLaren does not appear to suffer from this and it has not gone unnoticed.
“What’s quite strange is that they enjoy great warmup, but also very low degradation,” the Red Bull team principal Christian Horner observed in Australia. “Usually one comes at the expense of the other.”
“Strange” may imply that he believes they may somehow be pulling a fast one but equally McLaren might just be ahead of the game. The sophisticated design of the car’s front brake ducts has been noted.
Bringing the front tyres up to temperature is key but often requires overworking the rears, reducing their effective longevity, prompting teams to urge their drivers not to cane the new rubber on its opening laps as they try to bang heat into the fronts. It appears the McLaren may be cleverly channelling the brake ducts to aid this process, putting them into a commanding position.
While Norris failed to take pole for sprint qualifying in China on Friday he did make an error on his final lap. Nonetheless Lewis Hamilton for Ferrari was very quick for pole, suggesting McLaren’s advantage is not yet quite written in stone.
Pirelli have indicated teams are still coming to terms with how this year’s new rubber compounds perform, that the gaps between opposing outfits are very small and that minor adjustments in setup and balance will allow McLaren’s rivals to enjoy a strong tyre performance window. Certainly Ferrari consider the gap in Melbourne was far from representative.
For now then, they believe McLaren do not yet hold all the cards. A dry race on Sunday in Shanghai will certainly paint a clearer picture but if Norris and Piastri do have a significant advantage again in race pace then expect everyone to be taking a long old look at how they can find more from their “boots” before the season is entirely beyond them.
