McLaren biggest challenger to Red Bull? 'Love the success'

The McLaren team has undoubtedly made the biggest comeback of the season. Whereas Aston Martin was seen as the biggest rival to Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen earlier this year, it is starting to look more and more like they have developed their car closest to the Austrian racing team.

McLaren started the 2023 season moderately: after eight races, the team had just 17 points. 17 races have since been completed, and now McLaren has 219 points. It has almost caught up with Aston Martin, and the Woking-based team seems to have laid a good foundation for next season. In addition, the drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, are pretty evenly matched.

Norris and Piastri happy with performance

The drivers are, therefore happy with the current performance of their cars. Norris feels his team will be Verstappen's biggest competitor in the last five races: "I think we're just doing a good job, not just in terms of pace, but today we had a 1.8 second pit stop, which is pretty impressive from the guys. They've been working extremely hard. To reward the whole team consistently is only more motivating and a bigger boost every weekend. They like the taste of success."

However, Piastri does not want to shout too loudly yet that his team will be Red Bull's biggest competitor in the final races of 2023: "I think Suzuka and here [in Qatar] have probably been tracks we've been looking at for quite a while in terms of what's going to favour us. I think there's going to be some races that are going to be more difficult than here and probably suit other teams a bit better. I think 79 points [to Ferrari] in five races and a couple of sprints is a big challenge, but we'll give it a go. I think obviously the gap to Aston now is very achievable. Hopefully, we can do it."

Norris critical of himself after GP Qatar

In Qatar, McLaren was pretty strong. On Friday, both drivers curiously fell outside the top-three during qualifying due to track limits, but on Saturday nobody could ignore McLaren anymore: Piastri grabbed the sprint pole, and even managed to win the sprint race later that day. On Sunday, the team finished the weekend with a double podium: Piastri on P2, Norris on P3.

Despite that, the man in third place was not entirely satisfied. According to him, he was closer to Verstappen this weekend than earlier this season: "I don't know how much quicker Max could have done in qualifying, but I guess if I want to be honest with myself, I should have fought for two pole positions this weekend and potentially two victories. I know it's a big thing to say, but I think if things went well, if I just did a better job and didn't make the mistakes I did over the last two days, which is why I've been so frustrated, because I knew what was on the cards, what we were able to potentially achieve, and that was victories both yesterday and today."

Horner impressed with McLaren

There has not yet been a real challenger to Red Bull this year. The only race not won was the Singapore Grand Prix, when the RB19 clearly did not show the speed it did on other tracks. McLaren both grabbed a double podium in Japan and Qatar.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner is also impressed with the Papayas, telling GPblog and others: "It's moved around over the last four or five races, but they've become certainly more consistent. They've become the most consistent challenger and they're doing a good job and the drivers are driving well. I think, particularly Oscar [Piastri], in his rookie season, is doing a very strong job." Whether McLaren can continue its strong form in the last five races remains to be seen. In any case, the team has impressed a lot over the past few races.