How McLaren triumphed in F1 2020's best battle

Off the back of its recovery to fourth place in the constructors' championship in 2019, McLaren entered 2020 braced for a tougher challenge to head Formula 1's midfield. The emergence of Racing Point's 'pink Mercedes' in Barcelona and a strong showing from Renault throughout testing left some McLaren team members fearing it could drop as low as sixth or seventh in the standings.

Yet what followed was the best season in McLaren's recent history. Rarely did the team have the third-fastest car (on raw pace it was fifth, just behind Ferrari), yet it was able to beat its faster rivals to snare third in the standings, its best finish since 2012.

It was further validation for the recovery plan that has been formulating ever since McLaren's divorce with Honda after the 2017 season, and proved the strength of a balanced driver line-up in Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr, who eagerly capitalised on opportunities that presented themselves.

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Combined with off-track movements, 2020 could end up being one of the most significant years in McLaren's history. Following the cancellation of the season opener in Australia and the surge in the COVID-19 pandemic, thoughts of a bid for third position seemed a long way off for McLaren, as its attention turned to self-preservation.

The team was one of the first to furlough staff, with the wider McLaren Group announcing a plan to lay off 1200 of its employees, and secured a £150million loan from the National Bank of Bahrain to ease short-term cashflow problems.

The return to racing at the start of July in Austria gave fresh impetus to McLaren, but it still anticipated to be fighting for fourth at best. Even as Ferrari started to talk down its own chances, knowing the difficulties to come, team principal Andreas Seidl scoffed at talk that McLaren could be ahead of the Italian giant, even for a brief period at the start of the season.

"The gap we had last year to Ferrari was huge," Seidl said ahead of the first practice session of the season. "We definitely did a good step forward with our car over the winter, which we could confirm at the winter testing in Barcelona. But I don't think the step is big enough to be close to even a bad Ferrari car."

Seidl was wrong. A bad Ferrari car and bad Ferrari power unit was the catalyst in upping the stakes for F1's 'Class B' battle, making the race for fourth actually a race for third in the standings - and ultimately podiums, poles and wins that would fall the way of F1's midfield squads in 2020.

"In the beginning of the season, there were more circumstances where people had problems and issues or penalties. Continuing to push every lap when there was nothing to achieve maybe within that lap, that's where it all paid off" Lando Norris

"For all the midfield teams, it gave the possibility to actually finish P4 [in races], because Max [Verstappen] and Lewis and Valtteri [Bottas] are in a different league," says Sainz. "The year changed immediately. After the first three races, we realised we were going to be fighting for third in the constructors', and possibly fourth in the drivers' championship."

A taste of things to come for McLaren arrived in the chaotic season opener in Austria. When both Red Bulls retired and Lewis Hamilton was slapped with a penalty, two podium spots were opened up. Charles Leclerc was able to give Ferrari a sliver of hope with a faultless drive to second, but it was Norris who really stole the show. A remarkable final lap meant that, after the five-second penalty was applied to Hamilton, Norris scored his first F1 podium.

Proving his late charge at the Red Bull Ring was not a one-off, Norris pulled a similar trick at the Styrian Grand Prix the very next week, passing Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez in the final two laps to grab fifth. 'Last Lap Lando' was born.

"It showed not to give up in any way," says Norris. "There can be times in a race when you're completely on your own, and you just feel like there's nothing you can do to achieve much more. In the beginning of the season, there were more circumstances where people had problems and issues or penalties. Continuing to push every lap when there was nothing to achieve maybe within that lap, that's where it all paid off."

It gave McLaren a big boost at the start of the season, but things took a dip at Silverstone in August. Even with Racing Point receiving a 15-point penalty over its brake-duct design - concurrent with much mudslinging between McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown and Racing Point boss Otmar Szafnauer - McLaren was struggling to get both cars into the points, unlike its rivals. A late puncture robbed Sainz of fifth place at the British GP, and he ran as high as fourth before a wheelgun failure dropped him out of the points in the 70th Anniversary GP.

"I lost immediately 30 to 40 points off the back of the first five or six races," says Sainz. "That kind of set the tone a bit for the rest of the year."

After the Spanish GP, Racing Point had moved ahead in the constructors' championship, with Sainz's failure to start the next race in Belgium marking another missed opportunity. McLaren's peak was about to come, but it was a story largely overshadowed at the Italian GP by Pierre Gasly's remarkable victory.

As Red Bull retreated deep into F1's midfield, McLaren emerged as the second-fastest team at Monza. Sainz stuck his MCL35 third on the grid, edging out Perez in the Racing Point in qualifying, and passed the struggling Bottas on the opening lap to sit second. With Norris just behind him and the gap to Perez growing, a double podium was on the cards. But when Leclerc crashed heavily at Parabolica and brought out a red flag, resetting the race and affording a number of drivers a free stop, Sainz lost out. He dropped back to sixth, leaving him to battle past slower cars on the restart if he wanted to regain a podium spot.

Hamilton's penalty for entering a closed pitlane put Gasly into the lead and, by the time Sainz had recovered second, the gap to the front was more than four seconds. He chipped away gradually, gaining DRS with two laps to go, but fell just short of being McLaren's first race winner in eight years.

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"It was an intense final few laps, probably the most intense of my career," says Sainz. "But looking back at it, I don't feel like I could have done anything differently. I think just due to the circumstances, that day, I couldn't win the race.

"But I drove my heart out. Finishing four tenths behind the winner, and that winner being Pierre, makes it feel like a win escaped from us. But at the same time, if you put everything into context, actually the race was the best I could have done."

If McLaren thought Monza would herald a change in fortune, it was wrong. Sainz retired from the next two races, his silly crash in Russia also ruining Norris's race, and a power-unit problem sidelined Norris when on course for fourth place at the Nurburgring in October. Not only was Racing Point now back in front in the standings, but Renault's surge in form led by Daniel Ricciardo meant the fight for third was wide open.

By the Turkish GP in November, McLaren's bid for third appeared to be hanging by a thread. Ricciardo had scored two podiums in three races for Renault, while Racing Point took pole and third on the grid at Istanbul Park. Seidl was fairly honest of McLaren's chances, saying Racing Point could "damage our ability to stay in the fight for P3" in Turkey.

"We were always in a position to get into Q3, and always started the races in positions where we were able to fight for good points. We had a great team out there at the track as well" Andreas Seidl

"I still think there's a chance, because we always have two drivers who are able to score good points to stay in this fight for P3," he said ahead of the race. "But obviously we depend a lot on what's happening tomorrow. We will not give up this fight, as long as we can stay in the points gap."

As front-wing damage ended Lance Stroll's win hopes, McLaren left Turkey having lost just five points to Racing Point. Astonishingly, it pulled out 14 on Renault, which scored one point.

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Another bullet was dodged in Bahrain. An MGU-K failure on Perez's car denied him a surefire third place, handing Norris fourth and Sainz fifth, the Spaniard having battled his way from 15th on the grid after a brake problem in qualifying. Stroll's early roll left Racing Point scoreless, catapulting McLaren into a 17-point advantage in the fight for third with two rounds to go.

The pace advantage Racing Point had by now carved meant it was still a fragile lead, proven emphatically in the Sakhir GP. As Mercedes floundered and Lewis Hamilton substitute George Russell was dealt a lesson in F1 heartbreak, Perez and Stroll were able to capitalise, bringing home a 1-3 finish and 40 points. Had it not been for a stop under the virtual safety car, Sainz may yet have been leading the queue of cars behind the Black Arrows, making it another missed chance for McLaren.

The 10-point deficit to Racing Point entering the Abu Dhabi season finale left McLaren sceptical of its chances, even with Perez landing a back-of-grid penalty for a power-unit change. Norris put in a stunning qualifying lap to sit just two tenths off pole and bag fourth on the grid but, with Stroll qualifying eighth, pressure remained.

However when it mattered most, McLaren's great strength - two evenly matched, regular points-scoring drivers - came good. After seeing Perez retire early due to a power-unit issue, Norris and Sainz delivered a convincing race to cross the line fifth and sixth. A dithering Stroll ruined his race by failing to make easy work of Sebastian Vettel, and was passed on the last lap by Esteban Ocon to resign him to 10th place. The swing meant McLaren clinched third by seven points.

Despite all of the missed opportunities and the frequent pace deficit to its rivals, McLaren had managed to win the fight for 'Class B'. But how? One great quality of the McLaren MCL35 was that it ran fairly well on all circuits, unlike the Renault. And while the same can be said of the Racing Point RP20, that car was often let down by reliability woes - which proved especially costly in the final knockings - and race execution.

"We had a competitive car throughout the season, a bit of an all-rounder," says Seidl. "We were always in a position to get into Q3, and always started the races in positions where we were able to fight for good points. We had a great team out there at the track as well, which was simply very good in terms of execution of racing, qualifying sessions, strategy.

"Reliability was outstanding. On the team side, we didn't have a single DNF this year, which is a big step forward compared to last year. And last but not least, our two drivers did a sensational job. They made us, scoring all these great points."

That is where the true difference was made for McLaren. Norris and Sainz ended the year 9-8 in qualifying (8-8 if you exclude Sainz's issue in Q2 in Bahrain), and were split by just eight points in the drivers' standings, making their contributions largely even.

In contrast, Racing Point was carried by Perez, who outscored Stroll by 50 points despite starting one race fewer, after a positive COVID test forced him to miss both Silverstone races. Stroll's poor run of form after his Mugello crash - in part down to the effects of the COVID diagnosis that forced him to sit out the Eifel GP - was costly. The same rang true for Renault as Ricciardo wiped the floor with Ocon over the course of the season, the gap between them standing at 57 points. Had either Stroll or Ocon replicated their team-mate's form, it would have transformed the fight.

The 15-point penalty for the brake-duct design also cost Racing Point in the end, although few would argue its approach to reverse-engineer last year's Mercedes title winner was therefore a mistake. Without such an approach, it is unlikely that the team would have scaled such dizzy heights this year after finishing seventh in 2019.

There is also the luck factor to consider. Racing Point would likely have snared third had it not been for Perez's Bahrain issue, while Turkey was a chance missed for Renault after the first-lap spin for Ocon caused by his team-mate. But then that can be countered by Sainz's Silverstone puncture and his DNS at Spa, or Norris's Nurburgring issue.

But Norris reveals that the MCL35 has hardly been an easy car to drive. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"I've almost felt less confident," he says, comparing it to the 2019 McLaren. "It's not like we have a very easy car to drive or anything, and we can go out and nail it every weekend. It's a fast car, but it's one that is still very tricky to understand."

It is further testament to the performances Norris and Ferrari-bound Sainz produced through 2020. Even with the deck stacked against it, facing a faster car in the Racing Point and a manufacturer such as Renault, McLaren was able to rise up and seize the chances that came its way when it mattered most.

With fresh investment now arriving from the US, Mercedes power units on the way, and the signing of seven-time grand prix winner Ricciardo for 2021, the future looks bright for McLaren. The fashion of its underdog victory in the fight for third this year, even if it failed to win a race, should not be underestimated when it comes to charting what that future may look like.