McLaren’s route to the Constructors’ Championship

One of the renowned Formula 1 titans – McLaren – clinched the 2024 Constructors’ Championship at the season finale in Abu Dhabi, its first for 26 years, beating old rivals Ferrari in Formula 1’s longest-ever season.

Throwback to 1998

When McLaren last won the Constructors’ crown, neither of its two drivers – Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri – were even born. France had won the World Cup, what is now Google had only just been founded and Formula 1 had just concluded its first season with narrow cars and grooved tyres.

Back then, the Mercedes-powered team and its line-up of David Coulthard and Mika Häkkinen – who also claimed that year’s drivers’ title – brought the championship back to Woking, beating the Ferrari pairing of Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher to the punch.

The championships that nearly were

In that 26-year gap, McLaren has fought for no less than seven Constructors’ championships, but for one reason or another, has fallen short of the title. Near misses followed the ’98 success in 1999 and 2000 losing out to Ferrari, in 2003 against both Ferrari and Williams, 2005 against Renault, 2007 as a result of ‘Spygate’, 2008 against Ferrari and 2010 against both Red Bull and Ferrari.

Some of those campaigns have been hampered by poor reliability, a lack of points scored by the second driver, inferior machinery compared to the other teams or even the infamous ‘Spygate’.

An era to forget

The nadir of the Honda and Renault years brought the team to new lows, but a switch back to Mercedes power for 2021 brought the team back to the top step with Daniel Ricciardo’s memorable Monza drive. That result was something of an anomaly though, and McLaren had to wait another year and a half to become a genuine front-running package once more.

A sign of things to come

2023 would yield a Sprint win in Qatar for Oscar Piastri and seven podiums for Lando Norris – including an excellent second at Silverstone – hinting at what McLaren was capable of under former Ferrari man Andrea Stella.

Back on top

The 2024 season didn’t start particularly strong for McLaren, as the MCL38 only picked up a handful of points in Bahrain and the team sat just fourth in the standings. Poor results in Saudi Arabia and Japan followed, but a 3-4 in Australia helped get the team out of the gates in earnest. From those first handful of races, it was clear Red Bull and Ferrari were pulling away from Mercedes and McLaren.

Red Bull and Ferrari continued their run of form until the Miami Grand Prix, which Norris won with a timely Safety Car. McLaren scored consistently at Imola, Monte Carlo and Montreal (the last of which Ferrari failed to score in) as well as in Barcelona, which closed the gap to the Scuderia to 33 points, but Red Bull remained some 93 in front.

At the middle point of the season, McLaren was scoring well with both cars while Red Bull remained reliant on Max Verstappen. Ferrari’s form was sporadic at best, and the in-form team for a few races was Mercedes, who had a huge deficit to make up if they were to mount a serious challenge.A strong result at Silverstone with another 3-4 was a real positive for McLaren. 

Then came a controversial maiden victory for Piastri in Hungary; the team order-influenced 1-2 finally pushed the Woking-based squad clear of Ferrari in the championship, and they followed that up with another good haul of points in Belgium.

In the five races immediately after the summer break, McLaren took three wins and a total of six podiums, vaulting them into the lead of the standings. Neither driver finished outside the top five during that time. Norris’ wins at Zandvoort and Singapore crushed the opposition, while Oscar fended off Charles Leclerc to win on the streets of Baku. McLaren now had significant momentum, and a small but significant advantage at the top of the pile.

As Norris and Verstappen’s rivalry intensified for the following races, and Piastri’s form dipped slightly, that enabled Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to make up ground with back-to-back wins in the Americas.

Verstappen’s brilliance in Brazil and Qatar, while Mercedes dominated proceedings in Las Vegas added an extra dimension to the title battle, which Red Bull dropped out of before the final round.

50 years on from their first crowning glory, beating Ferrari on that occasion too, McLaren got the job done with victory under the floodlights in Abu Dhabi. Norris was imperious that day, winning comfortably from pole, despite Sainz’s best efforts and Leclerc’s charge from the back.

Despite a slow start and challenging end to the season, a consistent run of podiums at almost every Grand Prix – including an unbroken chain of 14 rostrums in the middle of the season – allowed McLaren to overhaul Red Bull and Ferrari to take the top spot.

McLaren retains its two ultra-quick drivers in 2025, and with a first constructors’ crown for 26 years under its belt, the team from Woking will be fired up to keep that title next season.