McLaren will be heading into the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix full of confidence after Lando Norris won his first Formula 1 race in Miami and Karun Chandhok has explained what’s really impressed him about the team this season.
After their remarkable improvement throughout the course of 2023, McLaren established themselves as one of the fastest cars on the grid at the start of this season.
Speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast, Karun Chandhok has explained exactly what’s happening at the team and shows they’re heading in the right direction.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are already two of the quickest drivers on the grid and both are at the right age to get even faster.
The Brit was the man to end their three-year wait for a Formula 1 Grand Prix victory after Piastri won the Sprint Race in Qatar last year.
Chandhok has suggested that the confidence shown by McLaren to deliver a comprehensive upgrade package in Miami last weekend highlights how much faith the different departments in the team have in each other.
McLaren are a team on the up and with Andrea Stella and Zak Brown at the helm, the team are in fantastic shape to make a sustained challenge to Red Bull and Ferrari.
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Karun Chandhok says McLaren upgrade package in Miami shows confidence in the team
Typically during a Formula 1 season, teams will try and deliver their first upgrade package around a quarter of the way through the season.
However, in 2024, this posed a unique challenge to the teams on the grid.
Both the Chinese Grand Prix and the race in Miami were Sprint Race weekends, meaning that teams only had one practice session to assess whether their new upgrades were working.
However, Chandhok believes McLaren are in a place where they have such confidence in what the team at the factory is doing, that it made complete sense to bring a host of upgrades to Miami to improve the car.
Oscar Piastri showed in the race that even with only half of the upgrades on his car he could stay ahead of Charles Leclerc and keep pace with Max Verstappen.
Lando Norris took that one step further and once he was in clean air after the safety car, the Red Bull quickly dropped away behind him.
McLaren are in an incredibly strong position heading into the rest of the campaign and you wouldn’t bet against their next upgrade package being just as effective.
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McLaren are now genuine contenders to win multiple F1 races in 2024
Asked if McLaren have built a car that can compete with Red Bull, Chandhok said: “I think they have got a car that can compete with Red Bull when the circumstances all line up.
“The upgrade they brought to Miami, the fact that you would make a decision to bring a big upgrade to a Sprint weekend and only have one hour to dial the car in shows a huge degree of confidence in the development program back at the factory.
“I don’t know of many other teams that would have that confidence honestly to make that decision.
“We’ve seen the Mercedes, haven’t we? They’ve been bringing updates, we keep hearing that what they’re seeing on track is not what they’re seeing in the wind tunnel.
“So, for McLaren to make that call is brilliant. We believe that Oscar [Piastri] will also have the upgrade we think in Imola, so he was shy a couple of tenths wasn’t he but even without that last little bit of performance he was still running 2 in that first stint.
“He was running a strong 2, he didn’t look like [Charles] Leclerc or Carlos [Sainz] could really attack him.”
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Lando Norris’s fighting talk suggests F1 must take McLaren seriously
Chandhok is right to point out the confidence within McLaren at the moment and that’s brushed off on their drivers.
Lando Norris is well known for being quite self-deprecating when it comes to his chances in Formula 1.
However, after earning his first Grand Prix victory, he’s shared a determined message on social media suggesting that he thinks he’s got a chance of replicating that victory this season.
Piastri should have the full upgrades package in Imola as well and while it’s a very different circuit to the streets of Miami, McLaren are still one of the best-placed teams to challenge Red Bull throughout the rest of 2024.
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