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Fourth for Lando Norris in last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix is validation for Zak Brown of McLaren’s development approach.
McLaren introduced the first part of a significant upgrade package onto Norris’ car last weekend.
That included a revised floor, sidepods, and airbox – the first of a three-part package that will find its way onto the can from Austria to Hungary.
The package comes after Brown, McLaren Racing’s CEO, admitted the car missed its development targets pre-season, with his team adopting an ‘aggressive’ approach to claw back the lost ground.
On the evidence of the Austrian Grand Prix, that netted rewards, though caution should be taken when reading too much into that result.
McLaren and Norris have typically gone well at the Red Bull Ring, while Mercedes and Aston Martin had off weekends compared to their recent form.
“I think Austria was a great validation – we thought we’d be pretty strong,” Brown began when asked about the upgrades by Speedcafe.
“Now we need to make sure that continues on these other races and it wasn’t track specific.
“We’ve got a lot more development coming,” he added.
“Our hopes, I wouldn’t want to predict where we’ll be, our desires are to be mingling up with the top four teams like we did [in Austria].
“Obviously there’s a big points gap with the top four teams, so whether we can catch that is probably a tall order.
“I think the battle with Alpine and others for fifth is very much on but hope that we continue with this development rate and we have more weekends like we had [in Austria].
While happy with the initial impression made by the first round of upgrades in Austria, he added that he’d been impressed by the team’s development rate.
Andrea Stella took the helm in place of Andreas Seidl during the off-season and restructured the operation’s technical department after being asked to review all aspects of the team.
“I’m very happy with everything I’m seeing out of Andrea and the racing team,” Brown said.
“We called our position our at launch; we knew we weren’t going to be strong at the start of the year, we weren’t surprised by it.
“So we knew it that was the case and Andrea then went about making changes rapidly.
“When we look at our development curve from when he kind of restructured, moved some people around, bringing some in some new people – some of which have started, some that haven’t – the development rate has been much better than we saw last year.”
Norris’ car will receive a further upgrade this weekend, with Piastri too set to get hold of an upgraded MCL60 in Silverstone.
Opening practice for the British Grand Prix begins at 12:30 local time (21:30 AEST).
