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Now we are seven races into the 2023 F1 season, with a degree of confidence we can begin to understand the performance of each team.
Focusing on McLaren, after beginning the campaign with a car that fell short of its own development targets, it has now re-set its goals to steal points wherever possible.
That has resulted in a difficult start to the year for the team and drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, with points in Melbourne arguably a result of circumstance, whilst those in Monaco were due to the conditions which played to the car’s strengths.
Last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix was a curious event that managed to highlight the single-lap pace of the MCL60 but equally highlight where the car is found wanting versus the competition.
It should be noted, the relative differences are small. There are no lame ducks in F1 anymore and the midfield is comparatively tight,
When teams talk of weaknesses – though they try hard not to – they are referring to a fraction of a percentage difference from their rivals.
The car is not fundamentally bad but it does have some unique idiosyncrasies that limit its performance, one of which is that it prefers cooler conditions.
That was seen in Monaco where it enjoyed relatively good pace across the weekend, and especially when the rain fell on Sunday, and again during qualifying in Spain.
In those conditions, what would ordinarily be a weakness becomes a strength, as Norris and Piastri were able to generate tyre temperature quickly.
As a result, they managed to the best life out of Pirelli’s compounds to maximise both the car and the tyres, without having one or the other overly compromised.
The flipside, however, is it tends to lead to higher degradation over a longer run.
When it comes to tyres, there are two important factors in terms of performance – core temperature and surface temperature.
Both have impacts on performance and, when that combination is not right, given the current spec of F1 tyre, it tends to grain.
The other issue is the working range for the tyres can be narrow, and some cars are extremely sensitive to the smallest of changes – a degree or two can be significant.
So while generating temperature quickly is good in qualifying, it can lead to a harder time during the race as overheating tyres degrade faster.
The McLaren MCL60 experiences high degradation in the races, meaning its drivers have to manage their performance to extract the best over a stint versus peak performance on a lap.
But that’s a one-dimensional explanation of a more complex issue.
The other issue is aerodynamic, a far more complicated subject but one which has a greater influence on the car’s outright pace.
In its simplest form, as the car drives through the air, its surfaces (both visible and via the underside of the car) are designed to manipulate that airflow, creating areas of high and low pressure in very specific areas.
Defining and creating those with maximum efficiency is the job of the 100 or so aerodynamicists in Woking.
In a straight line, the MCL60 is not terrible, nor around high-speed corners. Both are actually similar aerodynamically.
In a straight line, the car has a comparatively stable platform and static -again, comparatively – angle of attack in terms of its relation to the direction of airflow over the car (yaw).
As it corners at high-speed, the relative yaw does not change significantly in comparison to the airflow, and so the car remains reasonably similar from an aero standpoint.
It’s when that speed comes off that things change.
As the car slows, the downforce bleeds off and the ride height increases. With the suspension decompressed, lateral roll is introduced, and its pitch changes.
“When we talk about downforce, downforce is very dependent on some parameters like front ride height, rear ride height, roll angle, yaw angle,” explained team principal Andrea Stella.
“That’s why you actually should always talk about maps, aerodynamic maps.
“Our car delivers good downforce when it’s in a straight line and in high speed.
“In technical terms, the straight line condition and the high-speed conditions are actually very similar.
“When you go into medium speed, low speed, the air comes at a much wider angle, which is called the yaw angle; ride heights are higher, you are farther away from the ground, so actually the downforce you have is much less, not only for the speed but because of what we call attitude.”
Stella’s comments tally with those he made in Miami when he suggested the car does not like to be off-throttle around corners, and does not like slow- or medium-speed corners.
It also follows that the car does not like hotter conditions, as it works the tyres harder and pushes them towards overheating, reinforcing the negative traits of the MCL60.
As it transitions through a corner, it loses downforce and it slides, which introduces heat into the tyres. It is a vicious cycle.
By understanding those factors, you can understand how, beyond a specific working window, why the MCL60 struggles relative to others.
It would primarily suggest an aerodynamic issue, another point which tallies with comments made by Stella, who has suggested the B-spec car we will see in Silverstone will be “very noticeably different.”
Of course, there is far more nuance to it, but from everything that has been said by its drivers and team boss, we can get a good understanding of where the McLaren MCL60 will be fast, and why.
Give it cool conditions, and a fast circuit, and the car should be at its best. But a hot track with medium-speed turns, as we saw in Barcelona, and its weaknesses are exposed.
The solution therefore is not simply a case of ‘adding load’, F1-speak for adding downforce to the car, it is more a case of adding targeted downforce that works in specific conditions without compromising the strengths the car already has.
It is that puzzle the team at Woking is currently grappling with.
