F1: Why McLaren should value Austrian GP podium more than Brazil 2019.

Ask any long term fan of Formula One who the three most iconic teams left in the sport are and they’ll say to you Ferrari, Williams and McLaren. The Woking based outfit are 8-time constructors champions and have been home to 12 different drivers championship winning cars.

However since 2014’s V6 era, the downturn in form and prominence for McLaren was all too apparent. Its disastrous Honda powered MP4-30 along with its successors the MP4-31 and MCL-32 were at times woefully bad. Add to the mix a driver in Fernando Alonso who dominated team suggestion and direction to the detriment of harmony, whilst admittedly at times dragging the car to unlikely positive results, a disillusioned Jenson Button in the late stages of his career after the heart-breaking death of his father, and Stoffel Vandoorne, a driver who promised so much in junior series, but once at the team could never move out of Alonso’s shadow.

Not until McLaren made the switch back to Renault in 2019 with its line up of Carlos Sainz Jr. and Lando Norris did the team seem to have a car that was able to run competitively in the midfield consistently. The new driver pairing was a breath of fresh air and reinvigorated what had become a very negative cloud over the team.

The new driver pairing, snappy livery and a power unit that seemed to be going in the right direction meant that straight from the first race in Australia in 2019 with Norris qualifying in eighth, it was already an upgrade on 2018 which saw both cars qualify outside of the top 10 in Melbourne. Whilst the race didn’t go the way as planned with a DNF for Sainz and 12th for Norris on debut, the building blocks had been laid.

Sixth place in Bahrain and Austria for Norris, along with top five finishes for Sainz Jr in Germany, Hungary and Japan had easily put McLaren as the fourth best car on the grid and importantly ahead of engine supplier Renault.

However, the gap between the so called Formula 1.5 and the top six of Red Bull, Ferrari and the dominant Mercedes still remained a huge stumbling block for McLaren as they looked at reclaiming former glories in F1.

That changed at the scintillating Brazilian Grand Prix when a late safety car due to both Ferrari’s colliding bunched the pack up. Champion-elect Lewis Hamilton after pitting for fresh tyres made an overly-brave overtake attempt of Red Bull rookie Alexander Albon and spun the Thai-British driver out of second position.

The contact earned Hamilton a five second penalty post-race which promoted a delighted Carlos Sainz Jr. into third and a first podium for the Spaniard, as McLaren would score their first podium since the opening race of the 2014 F1 season when Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen scored a double podium for the team in the very first race in the V6 turbo-hybrid era.

McLaren and their fans were obviously elated, it had been over 2000 days since their last podium and to a team that was so used to not only competing but winning. It seemed to be the light at the end of the tunnel after of years of hard work recovering lost ground.

Sainz had earned the podium, he had consistently been the fifth best driver on the grid and his results in fifth and sixth over the season had increased the stock of the Spanish driver and ultimately earned him a move to Ferrari from 2021 in replace of the outgoing Sebastian Vettel.

Yet the fact that he had to wait to be given the trophy until post-rostrum celebrations slightly soured what should have been an excellent achievement. The late safety car may have artificially enhanced the McLaren’s position, but it was no more than McLaren or Sainz had deserved after a strong season.

Fast-forward to the first round of the delayed 2020 season and once again McLaren had once again another superb race. Lando Norris qualified a superlative fourth, and with a penalty for Lewis Hamilton promoting the young Brit to third come race-day.

Norris was brilliant all race long, he kept the likes of Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc behind, and even when Perez overtook him after a safety car allowed the Racing Point to move onto an differing strategy, the 20 year old made a brave move at turn three late in the race to move back into fourth and within sight of the Mercedes, and with Hamilton’s penalty administered, the team had a huge impetus to give Norris everything the Renault power unit would offer and close in the gap.

Using a super penultimate lap and simply stunning final lap, Norris gained almost two seconds on the Mercedes and ended 4.8 seconds behind, and subsequently promoted into third and a first podium and fastest lap in Formula One.

Norris had thoroughly deserved this podium, his pace at the Red Bull Ring all weekend was strong, and a fourth placed qualifying result was evident of his evolution as a driver over the past season.

His rookie year split opinion, and whilst his infectious personality and social media presence brought F1 into the 21st century, he also suffered a lot of bad luck, made errors such contact with Lance Stroll in Spain and was often outgunned by team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr.

Yet with Sainz now confirmed for Ferrari for 2021 and Daniel Ricciardo set to join Norris at McLaren, it’s a big year for Lando to prove that he can step out of the shadow of more experienced team mates.

McLaren weren’t the best of the rest in pre-season testing. It seemed that Racing Point had that advantage, and so to see Norris comfortably holding off Perez and Leclerc whilst on the same tyres at the start was very encouraging for McLaren’s management and fan-base.

This was a podium that much like Sainz Jr’s was gifted via a late safety car closing up the field and equally on both occasions a five second penalty for the six-time champion Hamilton, however this podium seemed to carry more value to the team on a whole.

Yes podiums to the ‘midfield’ teams are valuable no matter how they are won. You won’t find a Alpha Tauri fan or team member bemoaning how they picked up their podiums in 2019, but to look at the bigger picture, the McLaren team and fans need to be realistic. Carlos Sainz will not be at the team from 2021 forwards, and while he may enjoy another stellar season in papaya orange, it will not be the Spaniard moving the team forward.

To an extent it won’t even be Ricciardo in 2021 either. The Australian will join up with a team on the up, but with an engine supplier change to Mercedes coming, its yet to be seen if they can increase form and performance into the new regulation era from 2022 on-wards. The hope is Ricciardo can complement what the team has done so far and use his tenacious appetite for success to close in on the leading three constructors.

This is why the podium for Lando should be valued more by the team and its fans. Norris could be at McLaren for the foreseeable future, and with the switch to Mercedes in the near future, the young Brit could feasibly be challenging more often for these positions, and using the confidence gained by the Austrian Grand Prix result, Norris will now know that he is capable of pulling out these kind of finishes.

Zak Brown and Andreas Seidl are both fully committed to the current project that McLaren are undertaking, and whilst the rumblings of financial distress continue amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, the management pair will now have clarification that Norris won’t be the next Vandoorne, Magnussen or Perez who arrived with so much promise and under delivered in different ways.

The Austrian Grand Prix iluminated the F1 world to the mature side of Lando Norris, not only was his qualifying pace above par, but he kept calm in the early stages to comfortably hold fifth. Then when provided with an obstacle in Perez’s Racing Point, Norris made a bold and assured overtake when needed, while the final laps were stunning from the sophomore.

Under pressure and with a mountain to climb he drove two perfect laps, while listening intently to engineer Will Joseph as he calmly talked the Norris around the final stages.

To not only bridge the gap, but do it with the fastest lap on worn tyres at the end of a 71 lap long race shows true determination and desire to chase what could have easily just turned out to be fourth.

This was the weekend that truly showed the F1 fanbase around the world that Lando Norris wasn’t just a happy, meme-creating, twitch streaming number two, but he was a driver absolutely capable of taking McLaren forward over the next 5 years.

Will the move to Mercedes power change McLaren’s outlook? Who knows.

However for this season Lando Norris should be McLaren’s focal point, yes I believe the team will put equal pressure and support behind both drivers as they should, but with Sainz’s iminent departure from McLaren at the conclusion of this season, then Norris needs to be given the keys to the kingdom to allow him to flourish and move McLaren back into challenging for race wins and championships.

It is an incredibly exiting time to be a fan of Formula One, and seeing results such as the Austrian Grand Prix will prove to many that drivers like Lando Norris can challenge the status quo over the coming years in the sport, and with a team willing to back him, who’s to say he couldn’t climb to the top of the mountain and return McLaren to the promised land?