TIMELINE: How McLaren went from the back of the F1 grid to the front in under two years

McLaren have experienced an extraordinary turnaround in their Formula 1 fortunes over the last couple of years, going from the back of the pack at the start of last season to leading the championship a little over midway through this one. F1.com charts the journey with some of the milestone moments along the way…
On the eve of the 2023 campaign, the noises coming out of the McLaren camp were rather concerning. “We set some goals for development which we didn’t hit,” CEO Zak Brown openly admitted. “We felt it was better to be honest about that.”
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When cars hit the track in anger at the Bahrain Grand Prix, the team’s worst fears were realised. Newcomer Oscar Piastri was knocked out in Q1 and Lando Norris in Q2. On race day it got even worse, with Piastri retiring amid technical problems and Norris encountering grave issues of his own to finish last via six pit stops.
While there were signs of more pace on the high-speed streets of Jeddah next time out, McLaren also left Saudi Arabia empty-handed and found themselves holding a lowly ninth in the constructors’ standings – ahead of only AlphaTauri.
Just a few days later, McLaren announced an overhaul of their technical department, with experienced engineer James Key departing the Woking-based team and his Technical Director position being split into three specialised roles going forward.
According to McLaren, evaluations under new Team Principal Andrea Stella – who had replaced Andreas Seidl over the winter – began several months beforehand, in response to them falling from third in the standings in 2020 to fourth in 2021 and fifth in 2022.
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“This new structure provides clarity and effectiveness within the team’s technical department and puts us in a strong position to maximise performance, including optimising the new infrastructure upgrades we have coming in 2023,” declared Stella.
That optimisation appeared to pay off pretty quickly in the form of an upgrade package applied to Norris’s car at the Austrian Grand Prix, where the Briton qualified fourth for the main race and third for the Sprint, and eventually crossed the line in P4 on Sunday.
It marked a huge step forward for the team, following further point-less weekends in Miami, Spain and Canada, and prompted Brown to declare that McLaren were “back in the game” for the remainder of the season – “a lot of credit” going to Stella in the process.
McLaren took things to the next level at the subsequent British Grand Prix, where Piastri got his hands on the range of developments Norris ran in Austria and both drivers – living up to their striking chrome liveries – featured in the front-running battle throughout the weekend.
Indeed, Norris and Piastri emerged as Red Bull rival Max Verstappen’s nearest challenger to qualify second and third around the sweeps of Silverstone, with the former keeping P2 in the race and the latter looking set to join him on the podium until an ill-timed Safety Car.
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McLaren would achieve that double podium a couple of months later, though, with Norris and Piastri coming home second and third – behind a dominant Verstappen – in the Japanese Grand Prix, marking the squad’s best result since their one-two at Monza during the 2021 season.
A sweltering weekend in Qatar brought the victory McLaren had been craving, Piastri mastering the Sprint Shootout to secure top spot and keeping Verstappen at bay in the Sprint to take the chequered flag first – then backing all of that up with a fine P2 in the Grand Prix itself.
October also marked a significant off-track development when McLaren’s new in-house wind tunnel went live, a move Stella noted came with significant “practical” and “financial” benefits after years of travelling to Cologne, Germany to use Toyota’s set up.
Eight months after they sat second to last in the constructors’ standings, the aforementioned technical reshuffles and potent upgrades saw McLaren rise to a much more respectable position, culminating in them snatching fourth from Aston Martin in the final stages of the season.
As part of their March 2023 announcement, McLaren revealed that David Sanchez – having spent a decade at Ferrari – would be returning to the team as Technical Director, Car Concept and Performance, with respected engineer Rob Marshall signed from Red Bull shortly after that.
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“The addition of a high-end and skilled individual like Rob will further consolidate our ability to establish the highest technical standards at McLaren and be in condition to design winning F1 cars,” said Stella, ahead of both men starting work on January 1, 2024.
As it transpired, Sanchez only lasted a few months in his role, with an early-April press release from McLaren explaining that after “a number of discussions” over job responsibilities, the Frenchman had vacated his position amid updates across the department.
Following Sanchez’s exit, Marshall assumed the role of Chief Designer, Neil Houldey moved over to become Technical Director of Engineering, while Peter Prodromou continued in his role as Technical Director of Aerodynamics – all aimed at “further strengthening and evolving the technical model”.
McLaren enjoyed a much stronger start to the 2024 season and, almost a year on from that sensational 2023 turnaround being initiated, they unleashed another effective package at the Miami Grand Prix to go from occasional challengers to consistent front-runners.
While the Safety Car played its part in Florida, Norris brilliantly absorbed the pressure from Verstappen across the second half of the race to score his maiden F1 victory and give McLaren their first win since Daniel Ricciardo’s Italian Grand Prix triumph in 2021.
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McLaren went on a run of five successive P2 results with Norris and Piastri after that Miami triumph, adding another podium finish on home soil at Silverstone, but it was during the mid-summer Hungarian Grand Prix weekend that they hit the heights of a one-two finish.
It was not without controversy, given that pole-sitter Norris had lost out to Piastri at the start and undercut his team mate in the pits, then took a long time to obey his engineer’s instruction to swap positions, but the fact remained McLaren filled the top two positions.
Norris faced plenty of questions from the media over his handling of the situation, and a scruffy race in Belgium only added fuel to the fire, but he bounced back in style at the Dutch Grand Prix with a stunning hat-trick of pole position, fastest lap and the race win.
Exploiting further McLaren upgrades to finish more than 20 seconds clear of home hero Verstappen, who struggled with his Red Bull all weekend, it was here that talk of not only challenging for the constructors’ championship – but also the drivers’ crown – took off.
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Both McLaren drivers were on the podium again at Monza, albeit with some further drama around their so-called ‘papaya rules’, before Piastri pulled off an overtaking and defensive masterclass to beat Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in Azerbaijan and earn a second Grand Prix win.
McLaren’s latest points haul, combined with car balance struggles at Red Bull that were not only impacting Sergio Perez, but also Verstappen, meant Brown and Stella’s team moved into the lead of the constructors’ championship for the first time in more than a decade.
And so, with six rounds remaining, McLaren sit 41 points clear of Red Bull as they bid to become champions of the world for the first time since 1998, while Norris – 52 points away from Verstappen – remains in the hunt to win their first drivers’ crown since 2008.
Only time will tell if this remarkable timeline continues with title glory…