In the days before the 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Lando Norris looked me in the eyes and conceded that at that point in the season, he and McLaren were simply “fighting for points.” The 2023 Formula 1 campaign saw McLaren limp out of the gates, reduced to also-ran status early in the season.
Today, Norris and McLaren are F1 Constructors’ Champions.
The team’s stunning turnaround, which began in the second half of the 2023 season, reached its zenith Sunday at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. McLaren entered the weekend with a 21-point lead over Ferrari in the Constructors’ title race, needing one more solid weekend to clinch their first title since 1998.
They took their first steps towards that goal Saturday, as Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri locked out the front row during qualifying. Today, that dream was realized.
But the F1 gods — and Ferrari — did not make it easy.
Norris held onto the lead on the opening lap, something that had been an issue for him this season, but behind him, chaos reigned. The most notable moment from the opening lap was contact between Max Verstappen and Piastri, which spun the McLaren driver and shuffled him to the back of the field. That left Norris alone at the front, with Carlos Sainz Jr. in his rear-view mirror and a hard-charging Charles Leclerc up into the points on the first lap of the race after starting down in P19.
Norris maintained his lead over the first half of the race, but the next critical moment for the team came on a series of green flag pit stops. Ferrari called Leclerc and then Sainz in. to put the pressure on McLaren, and the team in Norris’ pit stall needed to respond with a perfect pit stop of their own to cover off the Scuderia.
A two-second pit stop for McLaren is exactly what they needed, and exactly what they delivered.
Norris rejoined the fight still in P1, 1.5 seconds ahead of Sainz in P2. By Lap 37 Norris had extended that gap to over three seconds, and everyone in McLaren’s garage — and back at the McLaren Technology Centre — could breathe a little easier.
By Lap 46 Norris had extended his lead over Sainz to over five seconds, and the main concern at that point was whether the hard tires the team had bolted on 20 laps prior would start to wear out. McLaren informed Norris that Leclerc, who had pitted six laps before Norris to make the switch to hards, was starting to deal with some tire degradation, so the next few laps would be “critical.”
With ten laps to go, the gap to Sainz behind was almost six seconds. Norris pushed it to over six seconds by Lap 52, and with five laps to go that gap was over seven seconds. Meanwhile Piastri, who had been sent to the back of the field due to the accident with Verstappen — and a ten-second penalty he was given due to a subsequent impact with Franco Colapinto — had fought back into P10.
Soon enough the checkered flag flew for Norris, and McLaren had taken the title.
“It feels incredible,” said Norris trackside to Nico Rosberg. “Not for myself, but for the whole team. The team have done an amazing job to come from where we were at the beginning. I’m so proud of everyone, it’s been a lovely journey, to end the season like this, it’s just perfect.”
McLaren’s turnaround began mid-season a year ago, with the first signs of life coming with a dramatic P2 from Norris at the British Grand Prix. That result helped McLaren inch ahead of Alpine for fifth in the Constructors’ standings, and Norris’ subsequent P2 in the next race, the Hungarian Grand Prix, pulled them the team in fourth, which was Ferrari at that point.
As the season wore on, McLaren kept climbing, eventually overtaking Aston Martin to finish fourth in the standings.
The reasons for that climb? Both a “faster race car,” as Zak Brown explained to me late last season, as well as the “best driver pairing on the grid,” as the McLaren CEO described Piastri and Norris.
2024 began with high hopes for McLaren, and while they got out to a slow start again this year — they were third in the standings ahead of the summer break — eventually Norris and Piastri climbed into second ahead of Ferrari at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where the Australian driver captured his first career grand prix victory ahead of Norris in P2.
They pulled into the lead in Azerbaijan when Piastri picked up his second grand prix win of the season, and the second in his career.
While they were within striking distance of clinching the title a week ago in Qatar, a ten-second stop-and-go penalty handed down to Norris in the closing stages of the Qatar Grand Prix put those celebrations on ice.
Now the champagne can flow.
“Me and Zak said we’re going to get absolutely hammered tonight,” said Norris. “We’re gonna celebrate, this is an historic moment for the team. They’re gonna want to celebrate, I want to celebrate with them, it’s gonna be a good night.”
While McLaren has delivered on their promise and potential this season, it is worth highlighting how even those inside the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking were not sure a title race would be in the cards for them this season. When I posed that notion to Brown ahead of the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix a season ago, the McLaren boss indicated that while they would give it their best shot, a title race in 2024 was probably a heavy lift.
“I think it’s probably still a little bit early,” said Brown when I asked if a Constructors’ title could be in the cards next year. “I’d like to think that we’re gonna be able to compete for wins. We’re certainly getting very close.”
Still, Brown is clear that they will give it their best shot.
“Now, the, the team’s very confident. The off-season development, from what I’ve seen so far is going very well. So, you know, we’re gonna go for it. That’s our desire,” said Brown. “I think we gotta wait and see what comes out of the oven with our race car, but I love the trajectory we’re on and with all these podiums, and, finishing ten seconds off Max [Verstappen] where at the start of the year we were getting blue flagged and lapped, is just hats off to the men and women at McLaren for the progress that they made.
“So hopefully we can keep making that type of progress. And if we are, I think we’ll be fighting for the Constructors’ sooner rather than later.”
Sooner has arrived.
