McLaren in the mix at the Hungaroring? History suggests there could be an upset on the cards

The start of pre-season testing for McLaren was labelled as nothing short of a disaster by the team and by the fans alike; showing a lack of pace throughout the test, having a car that was unreliable and being late in discovering a new aerodynamic concept to start the year with, the season to begin with us was looking bleak, to say the least. Following in Mercedes’s footsteps in posting an open letter to fans before the seasons had even begun added to the worry in an attempt to quel expectations of the team in 2023. Major upgrades delivered at Azerbaijan and Austria have completely transformed McLarens year and have thrust themselves from near backmarkers to fighting at the front of the grid at Silverstone. As we look towards Hungary, Can they be that competitive again this weekend?

McLaren’s seasons in the turbo hybrid era have been ‘hit or miss’ when it comes to consistently being up in the top half of the grid, 2014 to 2018 were a complete disaster with Honda and the first year back with Renault in 2018 proved fruitless besides Alonso’s stunning fifth place at the opening round in Australia. The 2019 season built a great foundation within the team and allowed them to push for podiums the following seasons in 2020 and 2021. Furthermore, the addition to Mercedes power for 2021, the season looked like a real turning point to the front of the field with a pole at Russia for Lando Norris and an incredible win and one-two finish for Daniel Ricciardo and the team at Monza.

However the team came crashing down to earth for the 2022 season despite an early podium for Lando Norris at Imola, it turned out to be a very mediocre year and a backward step considering the upward projection they were on. Slipping back to fighting for best-of-the-rest positions behind the top three teams and eventually losing out on fourth in the constructors' championship to Alpine.

We turned to 2023 and it was looking like deja vu for McLaren in pre-season testing, lack of pace and unreliability meant a significant lack of mileage compared to teams around them and after the first race in Bahrain, they were languishing at the back of the field throughout. It was then revealed that McLaren had discovered a new development concept in their wind tunnel and CFD data which was quicker than the package it already had, sadly it was too late for the team to bring the upgrades no sooner than Azerbaijan meaning that the team was forced to start the season with a car that it knew was behind development wise.

The upgrades started to trickle through with a new package arriving in Austria which started to show the strength of the car, particularly in the high-speed middle and final sectors of the lap and gave them a huge jump up in performance. A stunning drive from Lando Norris to earn the team a fourth-place finish gave the team a huge bounce coming into their home race at Silverstone. Mixed conditions throughout the weekend made the track constantly ‘green’ from the track transitioning from wet to dry on both Saturday and Sunday. Coupled with the huge advantage in high speed this put McLaren in a good window and in qualifying both Lando and Oscar put the team second and third on the grid at their home race. Lando repeated the result in the race after leading the first four laps, he delivered a masterclass drive in defence against Lewis Hamilton on two compounds softer tires and maintained the gap to Max Verstappen ahead of him. Oscar finished in fourth place after the late safety car allowed Hamilton to jump him into the pits.

Analysing the data after the race showed that McLaren was averaging about 0.2 seconds quicker than the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton behind per lap in the maggots and becketts complex alone in race trim. On two compounds harder tires. It was staggering to keep the Mercedes behind like that, with one of the silver arrows’ key strength itself being their performance in the high-speed corners and shows how big McLaren’s newfound performance advantage truly appears to be.

Hungary is a fast and flowing circuit that requires a lot of confidence and compliance from the car and relies heavily on performance in mid-high speed corners which litter the majority of the circuit. Looking back at last year Mercedes took pole position with George Russell at the wheel of the W13 edging out Carlos Sainz to the top spot on the grid for the first time in the Britains Formula One career. That year Mercedes were dominant in high-speed corners which tracks like Australia, Silverstone, Zandvoort, Hungary and Brazil all played into that strength and why Mercedes scored their best results at those circuits with Hamilton even fighting for wins at Silverstone and Zandvoort. McLaren arrived in Budapest with a similar advantage and a more compliant and behaved car than the W13 and from the data we have seen from Austria and Silverstone put them in a strong position to carry on their good form and score big again in Hungary.

Mixed conditions on Saturday and a washout on Friday are in the forecast for this weekend and the fact we are at the Hungaroring nicknamed “Monaco without the houses” by many means quite frankly anything is on the table this weekend, but the incredible upwards projection of McLaren is something to marvel at and there jump up the field has added lots of intrigue and excitement as we head into the weekend.