Mercedes F1 director reveals SECRET behind rival's resurgence
Mercedes F1 director reveals SECRET behind rival's resurgence
Sky Sports F1 pundit Ted Kravitz has revealed that Mercedes technical director James Allison told him where McLaren have been able to make such huge gains in 2023.
The Woking-based team have had an almighty turnaround from looking like one of the slowest cars on the grid at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix to being Red Bull's main challengers in the last few races.
Their turnaround has seen them pick up 202 points from the last nine races, having only gained 17 from the first eight.
At the Qatar Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri became just the second man to beat Red Bull in a race of any kind this season when he took victory in Saturday's Sprint Race.
McLaren then backed that up with a double-podium during the Grand Prix, their second in a row.
McLaren 'clearly have a good car'
The team are now just 11 points behind the fourth-place Aston Martin in the constructors' championship and may even fancy their chances of challenging Ferrari for third with five races left in the season.
Now, Kravitz has told the Sky Sports F1 podcast where he thinks the team are managing to gain on their competitors.
“James Allison from Mercedes said, ‘You look at where the Red Bull is strong, where the McLaren is strong and it’s in that kind 220 to 250kph bracket,’ which kind of meant that in those medium to high-speed corners,” Kravitz said.
“There it absolutely gains a huge amount of time.
"On the balance of the tracks that we have nowadays, that’s a significant number of corners that are at that speed range.
"That’s where the McLaren has really made huge gains. Alright, it’s not so great in the low speed corners but they can sort of figure that out but it’s clearly a good car.”
McLaren will be looking to capitalise on that high-speed advantage as F1 heads to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas for the United States Grand Prix.
READ MORE: McLaren boss gives INSIGHT on team's impressive turnaround
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F1 Standings
Drivers
- Charles Leclerc
- Carlos Sainz
- Lando Norris
- Oscar Piastri
- Pierre Gasly
- Esteban Ocon
- Sergio Pérez
- Max Verstappen
- Alexander Albon
- Logan Sargeant
- Lewis Hamilton
- George Russell
- Nico Hülkenberg
- Kevin Magnussen
- Fernando Alonso
- Lance Stroll
- Valtteri Bottas
- Zhou Guanyu
- Nyck De Vries
- Liam Lawson
- Daniel Ricciardo
- Yuki Tsunoda
Races
- Gulf Air Grand Prix of Bahrain 2023
- Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2023
- Grand Prix of Australia 2023
- Grand Prix of China 2023
- Grand Prix of Azerbaijan 2023
- Miami Grand Prix 2023
- Qatar Airways Gran Premio Del Made In Italy E Dell'emilia Romagna 2023
- Grand Prix of Monaco 2023
- AWS Gran Premio de España 2023
- Grand Prix du Canada 2023
- Grand Prix of Austria 2023
- Aramco Grand Prix of Great Britain 2023
- Grand Prix of Hungary 2023
- Grand Prix of Belgium 2023
- Heineken Dutch Grand Prix 2023
- Grand Prix of Italy 2023
- Grand Prix of Singapore 2023
- Grand Prix of Japan 2023
- Qatar Grand Prix 2023
- Grand Prix of the United States 2023
- Gran Premio de la Ciudad de Mexico 2023
- Rolex Grande Prêmio de São Paulo 2023
- Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix 2023
- Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi 2023
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