Has McLaren's biggest strength become its main weakness?

McLaren was shocked by its poor qualifying in Bahrain, and now has nowhere to hide thanks to its switch to Renault engines. But an approach the team employed in 2017 could be hurting it this season.

Jonathan Noble Apr 12, 2018, 12:52 PM

Upd: Apr 12, 2018, 1:23 PM

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World championship points might be what matter most to Formula 1 teams, but as McLaren heads to the Chinese Grand Prix, it will be the first to confess that its third place in the constructors' standings gives it little reason to celebrate.

Its racing director Eric Boullier labelled it "funny" that the team's placing is so high right now, because he well knows it has been bailed out by its consistency and reliability in the first two races rather than out-and-out pace.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.