F1 Spanish GP Analysis: Red Bull forced McLaren to highlight his full potential

A high-decomposition track with surface temperatures reaching approximately 50 c laid the foundation for a Spanish Grand Prix, where tire management would be important. Everything seemed set for one McLaren One or two finishes, and the only way to spoil the papaya party was to work with aggressive and Brezen-as Red Bull did with its unexpected three-stop strategy.

Its purpose was to compete with one of McLaren’s greatest strength in Formula 1: long -term tire management. This is why Red Bull saw a three-stop, an all-out attack approach as the only viable option to try to challenge McLaren-and, in fact, at a certain point in the Grand Prix, at a certain point, it seemed almost as if it could work. About.

Red Bull quickly decided to carry forward a more aggressive strategy, especially after that Lando Noris Showed that she was a year ago to overtake VarSTEPEN-one year ago, when British in overtaking was one of the major factors of the winning of four-time world champion in 2024. This time became clear this time that there was a need to be different to put McLaren under pressure.

“Given how the race was coming out, we chose to make three stops. We made that decision very quickly because we saw that in a straight fight it would not be possible to combat this speed and tires-management advantage,” Horner said that Horner said at the end of the race.

Looking at the recent race, it often becomes clear how Vastapane tries to keep it early with McLarense, ultimately there is no answer to the superior tire management of MCL39. It was exactly the aspect that Red Bull focused on building its strategy, establishing an attacker race – also made possible by the effectiveness of soft tires in Barcelona, ​​which proved to be the best compound of the weekend.

It may seem counter-counted knowledge, but the most difficult compound, C1, was nowhere: slipping everywhere because it could not get mechanical grip, even if the surface here was relatively rough.

The red bull was trying to attack the pure speed vs. tire-management capacity, a possibility here as the track layout had theoretically supported performance characteristics of RB12, with lots of long, sharp corners. Apparently, the three-stop approach also came up with its downsides: mainly, the additional 22 seconds were spent going to the pits for the third time; Secondly, traffic, which always forces drivers to use their tires, as much as they prefer.

On this front, during the second pitstop – when Verustapane switched to medium tires – Red Bull took a very smart decision, carefully monitored the gap. Lewis Hamilton To ensure that Max would re -connect him again, while trying to advance and extend his tenure. And this is exactly when the race became interesting.

In the initial stent, McLaren was always monitoring how his rival was doing without really feeling danger. However, when Vastapane started switching and pushed into mediums, closing at the window for a possible undercut, Woking Pitwall had to start thinking seriously how to protect your position.

“When we saw that Max was on a three-stop strategy, we thought it would not be a problem, because we had already taken it on the track,” told McLaren team principal Andrea Stella. “And we were going to benefit from a good speed.

“But the reality is that it was sharp. When we turned into mediums, we were emphasizing while controlling the speed, but Max was growing very fast than our expectations.

“At one point, we also told our drivers that they would have to push more. And both of them replied in this way: ‘I am not sure I have much more speed than this.” At that point, we were a little worried that during the first stent we estimated that the situation could be more open.

“It could have been complicated for us, as we had the Oscars and lands separated by about 2.5 seconds or from it. So if we needed to cover the Vastapane, it would have been a bit difficult with both of them, but, fate, fate, the Oscar found a quite speed at the end of the second stent.”

In fact, looking at the speed of the piastry during the second term, there is a clear change in the speed when the team asked to push it: Lap 24 to Lap 42, he took average of the 1M20.0s, but in the last six or seven laps of the stent – already having about 20 intervals on those tires – about half a second.

It is clear that McLaren’s car still had something in the reserve. It is clear that MCL39 cannot maintain that speed for an entire tenure, but when it really matters, Piastry showed that a clear margin is still available, to capture the actual capacity of the car to capture the accusation of Verustapain.

But where does this difference in speed come from? Already on Friday, MCL39 was in front of some extent being ‘weak’-and it is no surprise that for the second stent, McClayran tried not to oversight the front-left tires, especially in turn 3 and other high-speed corners.

When Piastry’s race engineer, Tom Stalard reported that there was a place to push Turn 3-one of the major tension points for the-fit-one of the major stress points-MCL39 came to light, in which Piastry quickly dropped several tenth part in its lap. This was an essential change of speed, especially since Australians only completed the lapping phase.

Piastry, also benefited from the benefits made above Noris in the first stent, excellently managed its tires during the initial part of the second half of the race, especially preserved in front-left. It is no coincidence that the lando, which had pushed hard in the earlier stages, did not show the same change in speed and struggled with more undersisters in 3 – so much that he felt that he felt that he was experiencing grain.

This often occurs when tires are subject to high thermal stress and cornering load, but this is an event that Pirelli has tried to dial out of the current compounds. This was not a problem for anyone here-it felt so only for Noris because he was feeling wearing it in front.

While the piastry pulled the front, the gaps opened, one was stabilized between Vastapane and Noris, Red Bull tried to play his last card: quickly for the third stop to try an undercut and try to take a position on the track – even if it means to adopt more in the same complex. This was a step that McLaren immediately brought to Noris and covered it.

Of course, McLaren can do so because it is currently two against one on the head of the ground – one problem is also needed to address the Red Bull …