Charles Leclerc makes intriguing McLaren consistency claim amid three-way title scrap

Having started the season strong only to fall off the pace before rebounding, Charles Leclerc believes all the teams “apart from McLaren” are struggling with inconsistent form.

Although Ferrari started the 2024 campaign as Red Bull’s nearest competitor, with two wins in the first eight races and a host of top-three results to go with those, a double DNF in Canada motivated the team to fast-track their Spanish GP updates.

Hero to zero and back again, Charles Leclerc weighs in on 2024’s inconsistency

The team brought several new parts to Barcelona, which included a revised floor, with Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both reporting an increase in bouncing in the high-speed corners.

Suffering correlation issues between the wind tunnel and the real car, Ferrari were forced to roll back on their updates before a new floor and bodywork introduced in Monza kickstarted their recovery.

The Scuderia though, are not the only team to suffer from correlation issues.

The Red Bull, the pick of the field two years running and again in the first half of this year’s championship, went amiss with their Hungarian Grand Prix updates, which also included a new floor, while Mercedes looked to have found their eureka moment with their Monaco front wing, winning three races mid-season, only to fall off the pace after the summer break.

In fact, the only team that has nailed every one of their 2024 upgrades is McLaren.

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Interestingly the Woking team has not made any significant changes to their MCL38’s floor since Miami, choosing instead to find performance from other parts of the car.

Leclerc reckons they are the only team not suffering with inconsistency this season.

“If you look along all the teams it’s not like previous generation of cars, where you could see that whenever a team had momentum, they had understood something, and they are just getting better,” the Ferrari told The Race .

“Apart from McLaren recently, it’s really up and down.

“You see sometimes Mercedes performing super well and then struggling. You see us as well, sometimes performing super well, and sometimes we are struggling quite a bit more. You see Red Bull also now, that have been super strong for many years, and now are struggling a little bit more.”

Leclerc believes the problem is two-fold, exacerbated by what has become a three-way fight in the Constructors’ Championship.

“This generation of cars are a lot more difficult to understand and the slightest detail can have a big influence, and it makes a big difference on track,” he explained.

“And the fact that we are so close together means you pay for the smallest mistake a lot more compared to previous generations of cars.”

McLaren’s progress allowed the Woking team to overhaul Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship at the Hungarian Grand Prix before taking the lead off Red Bull four races later in Azerbaijan.

They have a 41-point advantage over the reigning champions with six rounds remaining. Ferrari are third, a further 34 points off the pace.

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