Behind McLaren’s stunning turnaround this F1 season

As confident as Lando Norris is — you do not get to be one of just 20 Formula 1 drivers in the world if you lack that trait — back In April the McLaren driver had more questions than answers.

When SB Nation sat down with Norris for an exclusive interview ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the team had just 12 points on the year, thanks to a sixth-place finish from Norris, and an eighth-place finish from teammate Oscar Piastri, in the Australian Grand Prix. Their slow start led to Norris and the rest of the team recalibrating their goals from week to week.

“Points now is what we’re aiming for. I think that’s a realistic thing,” said Norris to me back in April.

“There are four very quick teams now that Aston have made that big step forward. And there’s eight spaces on the grid which get taken up pretty quickly,” added Norris. “So it’s a tough battle behind.”

My how things have changed since earlier in the season. As the team left the Canadian Grand Prix in June, the eighth race of the season, they were stuck on 17 points, and mired in sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

Then, the turnaround began. Norris delivered a shocking fourth-place finish at the Austrian Grand Prix, and followed that with his first podium of the season, a second-place finish at the British Grand Prix. Piastri delivered a big result of his own at Silverstone, with a fourth-place finish in the British Grand Prix.

In the weeks that followed, McLaren began climbing the standings. They passed Alpine after the British Grand Prix, moving into fifth. They finally caught Aston Martin at the United States Grand Prix, thanks to another second-place finish from Norris, and they enter the Las Vegas Grand Prix now fourth in the standings.

Thanks to yet another second-place finish from Norris at the São Paulo Grand Prix. The driver has delivered podiums in five of the last six races, and in 7 of the last 11 races, dating back to the British Grand Prix.

A stunning turnaround from where they began the season, just fighting for points. What made this possible?

“Faster race car,” explained McLaren CEO Zak Brown to me when he sat down with SB Nation last month for an exclusive interview.

Of course it goes beyond that, and Brown knows that better than anyone. Dating back to pre-season testing it was clear that the MCL60, McLaren’s challenger for the 2023 season, was not where it needed to be. That led the team to promise upgrades early in the season, and prompted a shakeup within McLaren’s management team.

“We made a team principal change, and technical director and head of aero, which were effectively our three most senior positions within a racing team, and put Andrea Stella in charge,” added Brown.

“And what that enabled us to do was to restructure the team, empower the great talent that already existed within McLaren because I think the impressive part is the people that gave us the car at the start of the year are the same people that have given this fantastic race car that we have now.

“So we really weren’t set up for success and didn’t have the right leadership approach to getting the most out of our people, and that’s ultimately what’s changed back at the factory.”

It also helps that McLaren has, in Brown’s mind, the best driver pairing in the sport. “Best driver lineup of the grid when you look at a combination of experience, age, talent,” said Brown when asked about McLaren’s duo. “I think clearly Lewis [Hamilton] and George [Russell] are awesome. “But Lewis is, you know, towards the near of his career as opposed to the start.

“So I think when you look at a complete package and you’re looking at, you know, five years down the road, there’s some awesome teammates out there but I think given our age, experience, and youthfulness, we’ve got a driver line up second to none.”

A big part of that has been the performance from Piastri. His journey to McLaren has been well-documented, and was one of the bigger stories of the entire 2022 season. But the team’s faith in Piastri, and willingness to fight for him last year, has been rewarded in a huge way. The Australian driver has delivered one of the better rookie seasons in F1 history, and perhaps the best since Lewis Hamilton’s stunning debut back in 2007. Piastri enters the Las Vegas Grand Prix sitting ninth in the Drivers’ standings and has a pair of podiums — a third-place finish in the Japanese Grand Prix and a second-place finish in the Qatar Grand Prix — as well as a victory in the F1 Sprint race in Qatar.

What stands out about the rookie? In Brown’s mind, it is his maturity.

“He has been fantastic. I think it’s been the best rookie season since Lewis Hamilton, at least that’s what everyone keeps telling me,” said Brown about Piastri. “He has all the same qualities Lando has just, what he doesn’t have is the experience Lando has. But as far as his natural skill, his determination, his maturity, you know, he’s 22 years old.

“But a lot of young drivers are over eager on Friday, and they get themselves in trouble, and then they never recover and have a good weekend because they spent time getting their car repaired.”

That is not the case with Piastri, who approaches race weeks like a veteran.

“Oscar kind of creeps up on it, he uses Friday as a test session and that’s exactly what Friday is, a test session. And he doesn’t get, which a lot of rookie drivers do get lulled into the, ‘I wanna win Friday free practice’ and then they end up not focusing on Sunday.

“So that takes a maturity to be able to come into a race weekend and be, mature enough and confident in your own abilities to look at the team timesheet on Friday and go, ‘oh, I’m a little further down than I’d like to be.’ But that’s because he’s thinking about Sunday. Not about Friday.”

Then of course there is Norris, who moved into fifth place in the Drivers’ standings with his P2 in São Paulo, passing Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr.. Norris sits just three points behind Fernando Alonso for fourth place in the Drivers’ standings, and is closing in on his best-ever finish in a season.

He finished sixth in 2021.

But in Brown’s mind, a World Championship is possible for Norris.

“He’s just a complete racing driver,” said Brown to me in October. “If we had a car capable of winning the world championship right now, he would be competing for the world championship.”

Now that “best driver lineup” heads to Las Vegas, for the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix. They are red-hot — only Red Bull has scored more points than McLaren since the Austrian Grand Prix — and the absolute talk of the paddock.

And a very long way from where they were in April, when they were just fighting for points.