Leclerc and Russell do not know "what made McLaren so fast this year"
Although they were unable to give a clear answer for McLaren's current form, Mercedes driver George Russell and Ferrari racer Charles Leclerc claim that the Woking-based outfit has managed to bring very reliable and effective upgrades so far.
McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris started from P2 and P3 on the grid at the British Grand Prix. Starting in the wet, the Australian managed to extract more grip from his inters than race-leader Verstappen could and picked off the Dutchman for the lead.
The Melbourne-born driver managed to build up an enormous lead of over 13 seconds over Verstappen and Norris. However, a safety car period meant that the championship leader lost his comfortable lead.
At the second Safety Car restart, Piastri braked heavily, and Verstappen shot past him. The stewards rules that the Australian had not followed procedure and handed him a 10-second time penalty. Just moments after this incident, Verstappen had spun at the exit of Stowe and dropped back.
It left Piastri and Norris at the front of the field, and they managed to build a huge advantage over the field. When the papaya cars pitted for slick tyres, Norris emerged ahead after Piastri served his penalty. That left the Brit to enjoy the last few laps before crossing the line to win his home race for the first time.
Although they were unable to give a clear answer for McLaren's current form, Mercedes driver George Russell and Ferrari racer Charles Leclerc claim that the Woking-based outfit has managed to bring very reliable and effective upgrades so far.
"If we knew, we wouldn’t have fallen back, to be honest. We don’t really know exactly why. They seem very good on the tyres. They seem very good in hot races.
"Clearly, their updates are working as they expect. And I think when you find yourself on the right tracks of this development slope, the rewards are endless, and they’ve clearly found that perfect path.
"Like Charles was saying before, these cars, these regs are not easy. I think we’re all looking forward to a change of regs. It’s not going to be easy next year, but the cars do seem a little bit more conventional. But then obviously we’re going to have the challenges with the PU and the batteries, so that’s a secondary factor.
Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc confirmed what Russell said, stressing that it is tough to pinpoint the reason for McLaren's improvements as it is most probably down to the overall package of the MCL39.
"I mean, I agree with everything that George said. I wish I knew what made McLaren so fast this year. For sure, they’ve done a significant step forward, something that I don’t think many of us expected, exactly for the reasons you mentioned because when you get to the last year of those regulations, everything tends to converge a little bit.
"But this year they just did a big step forward. I doubt that it’s coming from one thing. It never comes from only one thing. I think it’s just many different things that they are doing better than others, which makes a big difference at the end.
"But it is true that one of the characteristics that significantly improved since last year is hot weather. I think I remember there was an FP3 in Bahrain this year where I’m still wondering how did Oscar do that lap time in that heat, which was very impressive.
"There are these kinds of laps that you look and you say, you’re just a bit lost for words and you don’t really understand where the performance comes from. So they found something, especially whenever it’s warm and on tyres, that we’re still trying to figure out.
