A year ago McLaren was just starting to emerge as the team to beat, which meant that race wins were sup for grabs for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
In Hungary the team faced its biggest challenge up to that point in terms of balancing the interests of its two drivers.
What looked like a smart strategy call intended to maximise the team’s overall result became a little complicated when it reversed the positions and put Norris ahead of Piastri.
When Norris was told to let his team mate back past he was reluctant to do so, and while he eventually did follow instructions the episode somewhat overshadowed the Australian’s first victory.
Twelve months on and the team has been through a few more difficult situations, and each one has been something of a learning exercise, and potentially added layers to the Papaya Rules.
And given that the title is at stake and each race becomes more important as the number of points available reduces, we can guess that there could be further awkward scenarios yet to come.
However the team is now much better equipped now to deal with such eventualities, as Andrea Stella confirmed when I asked him about the subject.
“It was one year ago,” said the Italian. “To me, it looks like it was 10 years ago in terms of how much has happened from a racing point of view, how much has happened in terms of the rate of development of the team, or growth of the team, in the way the results that we have been able to achieve since then.
“But as part of this journey, there’s also a journey that has to do with the improving our way of going racing, what we call the racing approach.
“We have reviewed extensively one year ago, the race here in Hungary, and then we kept this diligent, rigorous approach to reviewing and learning, and we have as much as possible, formalised everything that we learned into our racing approach.
“And the thing that makes me most proud is that Lando and Oscar have always contributed very genuinely, very honestly, very transparently, just bringing their values into the way we go racing. So we’ve gone a long way. I think we have established a pretty robust platform in terms of how we go racing.”
He knows that it could get stressful in the coming weeks: “We are going to be challenged, because racing in F1 is difficult, but so far, and for the remainder of the season, I’m really proud and happy with what, with the way we’ve been going racing, and with the way in which Lando and Oscar have sustained the journey of the team.”
The team may have missed pole in Hungary, but Stella remains confident that the team has a strong package for the remainder of the season.
He points out that in contrast to the recent past – when the team tended to bundle upgrades together and bring them in one hit – this season there’s been more of a drip feed of performance items.
“We have seen a very positive trend in terms of our competitiveness, especially, I would say over the last three events in which we have finished P1/P2.
“This is not only because we started with a competitive car, but actually we have upgraded the car since Canada with what was in the past a single instalment upgrade. So it would have been very noticeable – McLaren bring a new car and improves by a few tenths of a second.
“But in the recent races, we have upgraded the car with some parts at pretty much each race, so we have become faster. I think here, the Hungaroring, despite the result in Q3 has actually proven that the car is fast.
“I think every single session we were P1/P2 by a decent chunk compared to the next team. This makes us very positive about the reminder of the season.
“We look forward to starting racing again after the shutdown. I think we have some tracks that will be favourable to us again, like Zandvoort, and we have also done some specific work for some tracks like Monza or Vegas in which, not necessarily last year we were dominant, and we knew that we needed to do some work for the performance at low drag.
“So we definitely look forward to the second part of the season, and we expect to be competitive.”
As for this weekend, Stella says the tricky conditions contributed to a cautious approach by his drivers, neither of whom could afford to make a mistake that dropped them down the order. Charles Leclerc in contract had nothing to lose and took his chance in style.
“I think it’s an interesting qualifying in terms of understanding how things go for an F1 car, because definitely we had a significant change of conditions. You can see in the meteo data a change in terms of wind direction, wind intensity, temperature, humidity, everything changed.
“And everyone from Q2 up until when we were pretty competitive, we put together definitely strong laps, from Q2 to Q3, everyone went slower. We went slower by about half a second in average.
“Actually, we simulated the change of conditions in our simulations, and it gives a little bit less than that, but about four-tenths of a second. But Ferrari and Leclerc managed to go actually faster. So the track was definitely slower.
“I think for Lando and Oscar, after they had seen in the first run that conditions had changed, that the grip wasn’t what they expected, that every corner was going to be a bit unpredictable, therefore, the lap time didn’t come.
“I think in the second set, they needed to be a bit cautious, because obviously, when you race for the championship, you want to make sure that you are there. I think this is a slightly different approach for Charles. I think it just went, went for it, like, I don’t think I have much to lose here.
“And it paid off. And this is a credit and merit to a very good execution by Ferrari and Charles.”
The conditions in Hungary were very specific, but Stella paints an interesting scenario.
What about the next time we get a rain-affected session, or places like Baku and Singapore, where there is very little margin for error? As their battle gets tighter will Norris and Piastri again leave a few vital hundredths on the table as they ensure that they don’t mess up that crucial last lap in Q3 – and potentially allow others to sneak ahead? It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Adam Cooper F1 