The McLaren’s weakness: its unpredictability
McLaren drivers have experienced difficulties with the MCL60. The team plans to work on these handling issues.
McLaren made an improbable comeback to the top of the rankings in 2023. After a difficult start to the season, the British team made numerous improvements to its MCL60, allowing them to bounce back. McLaren notably won a sprint race in Qatar with Oscar Piastri. While a championship victory eluded them, Max Verstappen and Red Bull were determined not to assist the Woking-based team.
Issues with grip and oversteer
Although McLaren’s competitiveness increased tenfold during the second part of the season, the unpredictability of the car has not decreased. Lando Norris has complained about it several times, particularly in Abu Dhabi. Faced with these difficulties, McLaren plans to study these various unpredictable aspects, including oversteer.
« It is often difficult to understand where the element related to driving is located or if there is an element related to engineering, explained Andrea Stella. « Is there a feature of the car that makes it so sharp, so unpredictable in certain circumstances? During our debriefing of qualifications, we were right in saying that recently we have had some driving issues that seemed more frequent than usual. Is there something we need to investigate? Have we incorporated into this development some elements that cause the car to lose too much grip quickly in certain conditions? It is a hypothesis. It is certainly a key that we will use in the coming days to see what we learn from these situations. »
The non-optimized drag
Throughout the early weekend, McLaren lost valuable seconds in low-speed corner areas. Andrea Stella also acknowledged problems on the straight lines. The MCL60 would not be using the DRS rear wing optimally. According to the team manager, his team did not allocate the necessary time and resources to minimize drag.
« We are satisfied with what we see in terms of top speed », added Andrea Stella. « On the contrary, we know that we still have work to do on the DRS effect, especially on the wing we are using. It is a wing that comes from a relatively old design in which we could not efficiently manage the DRS. »
The oranges couldn’t hope for as much at the beginning of the season. They finish the year in 4th place in the constructors’ standings.
