McLaren has revealed that it is “working a lot” to resolve the “inherent limitations” that remained embedded in the team’s 2024 Formula 1 car, despite its title success.
The recent campaign witnessed McLaren return to the pinnacle as six victories inspired the side to beat Ferrari to its first Constructors’ Championship win since 1998.
But while its MCL38 concluded the term considered the benchmark car, the Las Vegas Grand Prix exposed room for improvement on McLaren’s title-winning package.
McLaren’s competitiveness was capped that weekend as it toiled with extreme graining in the cold track temperatures, leaving Lando Norris to wind up a distant sixth.
Norris divulged post-race that McLaren’s woes had been down to a long-standing front-end limitation that accentuates the graining it experiences in cooler conditions.
“It’s been a complaint of mine for the last six years and again we’ve still not been able to iron it out and get it out enough from our car,” Norris told media including Motorsport Week.
“Some tracks that are more limited or certain things, these issues don’t arise but we’ve always been one of the worst teams for front graining.
“When we do our front graining, we’re not the quickest car but as soon as the front graining is gone, we have a car that’s quick enough.
“When you can manage it to a certain extent, we can survive. Today, we couldn’t manage it enough.
“The problems were way too severe and they’ve been just as bad in many other races even like Montreal. Montreal, we were killing the fronts. A similar case, low grip, street circuit vibe.
“A similar thing this weekend. There are traits. We have weaknesses in the car.
“They’re ones I’ve been saying for a while, but they’re ones which are very difficult to get out of our characteristic of a car. It’s something we’re working on a lot.”
McLaren aiming to dial out existing limitations
McLaren boss Andrea Stella has accepted his team must strive to continue eradicating such lingering issues to be in a position to win across all track configurations.
“Yeah, I think there’s some McLaren characteristics that we have improved over time,” he added.
“Definitely we have been able to deliver a competitive car that can win races but can win races in a certain kind of circuit.
“And some of these inherent limitations especially with the behaviour of the front end still sometimes pop out when track layout or grip level or downforce level
mean that you need to get a certain response from the front end and at the moment this response from the front end we are not able to offer to our drivers.”
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