McLaren vs Verstappen: How to Counterattack in the F1 Title Fight?

Verstappen Overtakes McLaren in the Fight for the Formula 1 Championship

For the first time this season, a McLaren driver is no longer the favorite to win the Formula 1 world championship. Sports betting places Max Verstappen at +150, while Oscar Piastri is at +175 and Lando Norris at +200. Just three races ago, Verstappen’s odds were +8000, which underscores the speed with which he has reduced Piastri’s lead in the drivers’ standings. The comeback of Red Bull and Verstappen has been such that McLaren could have panicked after another disappointing weekend at the United States Grand Prix. However, while the world realizes the possibility of Verstappen overcoming the biggest points gap in F1 history to win his fifth title, McLaren has been fully aware of the threat for several races.

“The danger for me is the same as it was in Baku,” said McLaren team principal Andrea Stella in Austin on Sunday night. “I said very clearly in Baku that Max was in contention for the drivers’ championship, and when I say something, I mean it.”

Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal

Identifying the threat is one thing, but combating it is another.

Since last month’s Italian Grand Prix, Verstappen has outperformed the two McLaren drivers combined and reduced his distance to Piastri by 64 points. If the same trend of results is applied to the last five races of the season, Verstappen would surpass both Piastri and Norris to win this year’s title.

By exploring fruitful configuration directions and adding a significant upgrade to the RB21 at the Italian Grand Prix, the Red Bull in Verstappen’s hands has become the fastest car on the grid in recent races. Combine that with the McLaren drivers struggling to maximize their car’s performance, while making significant mistakes such as Piastri’s crashes in qualifying and the race in Baku, and the gap in the standings has been reduced at a dramatic pace.

As impressive as Verstappen’s quest for a fifth title has been, the outcome of the drivers’ championship should still be in McLaren’s hands. If both McLaren drivers outperform the defending champion in just one of the remaining five races, the task facing Verstappen becomes immensely tougher. What’s more, McLaren believes that three of the remaining circuits (Brazil, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi) will play to the underlying strengths of their car much more than recent track layouts.

“The fact that there are five races and two sprints means we can also increase the gap with Max. That’s how I see things,” said Stella. “I think we have good tracks coming up for our car and I think we have more that we could have exploited from our car.”

Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal

Stella also believes that McLaren’s performance is not as disappointing as recent results have suggested. In the five races since the series returned from its summer break in Zandvoort, Piastri’s average finishing position is 6.6 and Norris’s is 6.4. Verstappen’s is 1.4. After Sunday’s race in Austin, Stella was convinced that Norris would have had the pace to match Verstappen if he hadn’t lost a position to Charles Leclerc at the start and spent the rest of the race battling the Ferrari.

“I think in terms of the trend [of performance in relation to Verstappen], today is a relatively reassuring race because I think without having to fight with Charles, which was certainly an entertaining fight in itself, I think Lando had the pace to win the race today,” Stella said. “Obviously, he needed to gain position on track, which is never easy with Max, and with a one-stop strategy, we wouldn’t necessarily have had many opportunities from a strategic point of view. But in terms of performance, I think we are confident that the pace was enough to fight for the victory.”

Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal

Piastri’s lack of performance in Austin was more difficult to explain, but Stella said that important lessons were learned on Sunday that would be applied to the next rounds.

“This is certainly one of the most important points we need to review, which is the fact that Oscar, in qualifying and in the race, seemed to have a couple of tenths of a second that he couldn’t fully realize, and that was possibly available in the car,” said Stella. “I think we know, with Oscar, that when conditions are such that we have little grip, you really need to challenge the car, lean on the understeer, the oversteer, the locking”.

Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal

Stella also wanted to emphasize that McLaren’s disastrous sprint race, in which Piastri and Norris collided and retired, had significant repercussions for the rest of the weekend. In addition to the points lost, McLaren also missed crucial data by running the car during the shortened race format that would have unlocked more performance in qualifying and the race. With the current generation of F1 cars, significant aerodynamic performance can be found when running at lower ride heights. To prevent teams from running dangerously close to the ground, a resin “plank” is placed on the underside of the car that must maintain a certain thickness at various measuring holes to be considered legal.

Running the car too low over the uneven surface of the Circuit of the Americas and excessive wear on the plank can result in disqualification from the results, as Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton found out two years ago. The sprint race usually offers teams a convenient preview of what they can expect from the long-distance grand prix, allowing them to adjust their ride heights accordingly, but without data from any of the cars, McLaren had to play it safe in Austin and sacrifice potential performance.

“It’s about the correct ride heights and losing references to fully exploit what is allowed on a track like COTA, which we know has caught out some teams in the past,” said Stella. “It’s one of those where it’s very difficult to nail the last millimeter [of ride height] if you don’t have references coming from the actual race. Simulation can only take you so far, then you need data from the track to go to the last millimeter.”

Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal

What will McLaren do now?

One way to increase the chances of a McLaren driver winning the title would be for the team to fully back a single driver. Piastri would be the obvious choice based on his 14-point lead in the championship, although Norris’s better form in recent races is one of the many reasons why such a decision is not clear.

After multiple questions about such a strategy over the weekend, McLaren remained even firmer in its belief that both drivers deserve the same opportunities. The only thing that will change that would be a driver being mathematically excluded from the fight for the title.

“When it comes to having to make a call on a driver, this will only be led by mathematics,” Stella said. “I can remember at least 2007, 2010, where you get to the last race and it’s actually the driver who finishes third who wins the championship, but we are not going to close the door unless this is closed by mathematics.”

Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal

So, what’s McLaren’s plan to fight Verstappen? According to Stella, the answer is remarkably simple: stay calm and carry on.

“Well, first of all, I need to stay calm and, by putting things in good perspective, I hope I can do it,” he explained. “We are still talking about the fact that what we are facing at the moment, which is a close competition to win races, a close competition in the pursuit of the drivers’ championship, is what Formula 1 is all about. If anything, it was anomalous when we were easily doing P1, P2, like in Barcelona, in Bahrain, in some other places. That’s not what Formula 1 is about.”

Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal

“So it’s a process of getting used to this kind of pressure, with which we want to live with maximum intensity and minimum stress. We don’t want to lose the joy of doing what we do. We just want to make sure that we put ourselves in the state where we perform at our best, which also includes having fun and recognizing that, ultimately, it’s a great privilege to be in this situation, and it’s a privilege that came thanks to the good work that McLaren, the team, the two drivers have been able to do.” “So what we do in the future is very easy. We keep doing the good work and the results will take care of themselves.”