McLarenFormula 1 team leader Andrea Stella mentions that the team has “implemented measures” following their underwhelming result from last year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, a race that has proven to be one of their least successful venues in recent times.
McLaren secured positions six and seven on the Las Vegas Strip street course during the previous season, withLando Norris and Oscar Piastrifinishing 43 and 51 seconds behind the Mercedes championGeorge Russell, respectively, after having secured a significant lead of seven tenths. They were also heavily defeated by bothFerrari cars as well as Max Verstappen.
Back then, its subpar performance on the low-downforce street circuit came as no big surprise, even though McLaren faced more than just aerodynamic inefficiency due to its low-drag rear wing; it also had difficulties getting the tires to function effectively in the cold desert climate.
Las Vegas last year was one of the toughest races,” said team boss Stella. “We faced issues with tire performance during qualifying, as we weren’t quick enough, and during the race due to significant tire graining.
We encountered some aerodynamic challenges when we attempted to remove the rear wing, as we noticed a significant drop in efficiency. Additionally, we faced some difficulties in adjusting the car’s setup to counteract this graining and certain instances of understeer.
Stella mentioned that the papaya squad acted following last year’s poor performance, but it’s unclear if this will be sufficient. The absence of long, high-speed corners limits the McLaren MCL39 from leveraging one of its main advantages, and due to the cold weather, the team will not gain as much benefit from its advanced cooling system as it does in hotter races.
Although Mercedes’ performance has been difficult to interpret, there is no indication that they won’t be a contender once again in Las Vegas, and Ferrari also anticipates being more competitive.
Last year’s review from Vegas provided us with a lot of data to help us figure out how to make improvements,” Stella said. “I think, from a tyre perspective, an aerodynamic efficiency standpoint, and a car setup angle, we now understand which areas we need to adjust compared to last year.
Will it be sufficient to stay competitive now? We’ll only find out in Vegas, but we definitely took steps based on what we observed last year since the performance was clearly not good enough.
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The leader of the championship, Norris, didn’t express much confidence in his ability to secure three consecutive victories for the first time in his career.
I believe it was our worst race from last year,” he said. “We knowMercedesThey were extremely powerful last year, along with Red Bull and Ferrari. I believe we were at the bottom of those four.
We’ll wait and see. Clearly, we’ve made many improvements this year, so I won’t be too negative about it.
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