F1 Q&A: Verstappen, Norris, Piastri, Newey, safety cars and rebuilds after accidents

Why do people get so excited that Max Verstappen “is winning in an inferior car” when it’s clearly not an inferior car? – Bob

Seven races into the season, there is a decent sample from which to draw conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of the various cars.

On pure qualifying pace, McLaren have four pole positions to Red Bull’s three, and the McLaren is quicker on average by 0.138 seconds a lap, or 0.163%.

In race results, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri has four wins, his team-mate Lando Norris one and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen two.

Just distilling it down to those raw statistics, it is clear to see why “people” would say the Red Bull was an “inferior” car, as you put it. Because, on balance, it is true that the McLaren is the better car over a wider range of circumstances.

But their relative performance changes depending on track characteristics.

In particular, the Red Bull is strong in high-speed corners. That’s why its best tracks of the season have been Suzuka, Jeddah and Imola.

This was not as clear at the time of the Japanese Grand Prix as it is now, and that probably explains the reaction at the time to Verstappen’s pole lap and win at Suzuka.

That’s not to diminish the quality of his pole there. It was truly outstanding; the McLaren was slightly faster at Suzuka and either Piastri or Norris could have beaten it had they nailed their laps. But it is extra context.

By contrast, when rear-tyre degradation is a big issue, and/or or the corners are slower on balance, the McLaren is a stronger relative package, especially in races.

That’s how they can go from humiliating Verstappen and Red Bull in Miami to being beaten fair and square in Imola – although had Piastri held on to the lead at the first corner on Sunday, he may well have been able to take a defensive win in a similar fashion to Verstappen’s in Japan.

At the same time, the picture is never fixed, because F1 cars are prototypes, and Red Bull have introduced upgrades at the past two races, whereas McLaren have not, really.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella put it like this on Sunday evening in Imola: “Red Bull have improved. They’ve been developing their car over the last couple of races, and I think they have taken a step forward.

“And then, if you look at the speed of the corners, and we compare it with the speed in Miami, it’s a completely different regime. The car operates in a completely different part of the aerodynamic maps.

“We know that our car is strong in track layouts like Miami, or Bahrain, or China. But when it comes to high-speed corners, like we have here in Imola, I don’t think we enjoy any particular advantage.

“So, the track layout, the progress of Red Bull, I think they are the two factors that make that we didn’t have much advantage today.”