McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris took a sensational 2-1 win at Monza, but in the races that followed Ferrari introduced an upgraded engine for both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
After a hard-fought battle during the 2021 season, the upgrade allowed Ferrari to leap forward, allowing Leclerc to qualify by more than six tenths of an advantage over the first McLaren in Turkey.
Both Ferraris also qualify the McLarens at the US Grand Prix in Austin, albeit with a significantly smaller lead, but in the race the fourth-placed Leclerc managed a full pit stop in front of Ricciardo behind him. This enabled Ferrari to reduce the gap to the team from Woking to just 3.5 points.
“I think Ferrari was obviously faster than us,” said Norris, who finished eighth behind Sainz after a tough afternoon.
“Maybe it doesn’t look like Carlos would only have got stuck behind Daniel, but if Carlos had been ahead of Daniel he would have got away with Charles, so we didn’t have the pace compared to the Ferraris all weekend.”
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
Norris acknowledged that the extra tenths Ferrari got from its Power Unite upgrade made a huge difference and would make life difficult for McLaren for the remaining five races.
“It definitely just tipped it in that direction,” he replied when asked if Ferrari’s upgrade finally made the difference in favor of the Scuderia.
“You are definitely ahead at the moment. Not faster everywhere, just a car that is more constant than we are and more drivable.
“But that doesn’t change the way we’re going to try to stay ahead. It’s not what we want so late in the season. We have to try to do a little more to be in front of them again . “
When asked by Motorsport.com how concerned he was about Ferrari’s pace lead, McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl said “worry won’t help,” but admitted that McLaren has to accept that the advantage lies with Ferrari.
“It is a reality that they have made a good step forward with their package, including the upgrade they introduced on the power unit side,” he said.
“And that gave them a good advantage, especially in the last two races compared to us. So that’s the reality we are in.
“But at the same time, it’s just important to focus on ourselves; we know that there are no more upgrades on the vehicle or drive side.
“We know that there are tracks that will probably show the strengths of our car a little more, but there are also tracks at the end of the season where we will have difficulties compared to Ferrari.
“It’s just important that we get the most out of the package every weekend, drive clean weekends, drive clean races, have a good strategy and then hopefully enough to fight them until the last lap in Abu Dhabi.”
The post Ferrari “significantly faster” after the F1 engine upgrade first appeared on monter-une-startup.
