Rain saves McLaren at Spa-Francorchamps
Recent upgrades help McLaren continuously sublimate after the Canadian Grand Prix, when F1 races return to Europe. Coming to the Belgian Grand Prix, the prospect of the British racing team is even greater when rookie Oscar Piastri competes fairly and excellently for second at the Sprint race on Saturday afternoon July 29. Before that, Piastri and teammate Lando Norris also won the right to start the 5th and 7th for the official race on Sunday afternoon July 30.
However, the race soon turned into a nightmare for the British team from the very beginning. Piastri's MCL60 soon broke down and had to give up after getting stuck between Carlos Sainz's (Ferrari) car and the retaining wall at the corner of La Source. The remaining hope for Lando Norris also gradually lagged in the early stages. The British driver endured what he described as "terrible" - being overtaked in a straight line before reaching the DRS spoiler area, and then unable to reach the actual speed of the MCL60. due to being stuck.
As a result, Norris dropped four places in the first few rounds when she was surpassed by Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll, George Russel and Esteban Ocon. Witnessing Norris' poor speed with medium tires, McLaren decided to call the driver home to the pit early from lap 5. However, being the only driver to switch to hard tires made the situation worse. with Norris. The MCL60 dropped straight to 16th place. The race seemed to end for McLaren as soon as the new team entered the 17th lap.
"Our goal then was to get Lando out of the cars that were gripping him around, give him space to accelerate and try to finish a long distance on hard tyres, and then finish on a set of tires. soft tyres," explained team leader Andrea Stella. "But it must be admitted that our judgment about the grip of the hard tires was incorrect. The hard tires did not provide the necessary grip for the car, so Lando was stuck in the last group."
But in the midst of their despair, the mid-race rain turned into fortune for McLaren, saving Norris. By round 20, raindrops began to fall sporadically on Spa-Francorchamps. The intensity of the rain was not large enough for the team to switch to tires for rain, but the speed of the team decreased sharply. After nearly losing control in the high-speed corner of Eau Rouge, leader Max Verstappen had to slow down deeply, with about 5 seconds per lap during this period.
When it rained, McLaren saw a good opportunity to turn the tide. The British team quickly called Norris to the pit to replace the hard tires and switched to soft tires in lap 17. Normally, changing the tires at this time is too early with the second pit stop. Mercedes driver George Russell at that time had not even changed a tire.
However, the new, more grippy soft tires have become very useful to Norris now. The British driver came out of the pit in the last place of the race, but quickly reached a speed higher than the rest of the racers by a second per lap. During the time between laps 19 and 22, Norris was the fastest on the team - faster than the second fastest driver in that period (Verstappen in laps 19 and 22, and Nico Hulkenberg in laps 20 and 21) in total. 5.4 seconds.
Stella admits this is a golden opportunity for McLaren to come back. He said: "Fortunately, the race gave us the opportunity to correct the situation. We ran like new on the soft tires when it rained. I want to commend the work of the logistics departments when they did. provided us with information that allowed the team to assess their performance in the rain with the soft tyres.The use of soft tyres has allowed Lando to reap a large profit in terms of time compared to cars using the old soft tyres. , and they have to be much more careful than Lando when driving in the rain."
By lap 27, the rain stopped, when the drivers in the second half of the race returned to the second pit, Norris climbed 12 steps to seventh. At that time, the racer himself did not believe he climbed so high. The MCL60's impressive speed in the rain is because McLaren's car has more compression than rivals. Before the Belgian Grand Prix, Norris admitted that the MCL60 was 25 km / h behind the opponent at the distance using DRS because of the high compression created by the McLaren car.
From being a disadvantage, the high compression level of the MCL60 suddenly became an advantage for McLaren in the second half of the race. Not only helping Norris sublimate in the rain, this detail also helped the British driver compete well during the last 27 laps with soft tires. This is the longest distance achieved by drivers at the Belgian Grand Prix with this tire.
Stella explains: "The MCL60 has enough downforce in the mid lane of Spa-Francorchamps. Thanks to that, we were able to extend the running time on soft tires for that long and really stay competitive, even right away. even when the rubber layer on the soft tire is almost worn out."
