Inside McLaren's epic one-year turnaround

Here are the three key investment areas that fueled McLaren's epic one-year turnaround in Formula 1.

Development speed. 17th and 20th in Bahrain. 15th and 20th in Saudi Arabia. 17th and 19th in Miami. Results weren't just poor for McLaren at the start of 2023. They were downright catastrophic. The car that the McLaren team built simply wasn't up to F1 performance standards, and many worried the team would fall apart as the bad results compounded.

They didn't need to worry. McLaren moved quickly and became the rare F1 enterprise to deliver major performance gains in the middle of a racing season. Its comprehensive 2023 upgrades — featuring a new floor, diffuser, halo and engine cover — debuted on Norris' car at the Austrian Grand Prix in June and flipped the script. Norris finished fourth with the new tech.

Continuous mid-season upgrades, including another big package in Singapore in fall 2023, helped McLaren move from the back of the pack to the podium that season.

While McLaren began the 2024 season with a fairly competitive car, it practiced the same quick development cycle to leapfrog the Red Bulls and Ferraris in Miami. The team installed nine separate upgrades to its car before winning the 2024 Miami Grand Prix.

Big backroom moves. F1 is experienced on the race track, but it's built in auto factories by some of the sharpest minds in sport. While McLaren was busy upgrading its car in 2023, it was also upgrading its executive team back at headquarters. It combed through its rivals to poach an engineering director from Red Bull and a car concept director from Ferrari.

McLaren's biggest executive coup, however, is team principal Andrea Stella. A McLaren and Ferrari veteran with more than 20 years of F2 engineering experience, he was promoted to team principal after the departure of Andreas Seidl. 

Stella orchestrated McLaren's executive upgrades and infused the team with an engineering spirit. His changes were exactly the push McLaren needed, and they made it possible for the team to produce its quick technical upgrades.

"Becoming performance-led and removing dilution was a fundamental element of the vision," Stella said, per motorsportmagazine.com. "And then, really, it's about creating a vision and objectives for the team. And then empowering the key people and giving them the resources such that they can fulfill the objectives."

Commitment to young drivers. The current F1 grid is one of the most talented in the history of the sport — 12 of the 20 are race winners and three are former world champions. With all of those experienced drivers available, McLaren made the controversial — and ultimately brilliant — decision to eschew big-name stars in favor of talented youth prospects it could develop over time.

Norris joined McLaren as a teen, making his F1 debut with the team at age 19. His teammate, Oscar Piastri, debuted at the same age in 2023 after McLaren poached him from Alpine's development program. Both look set to become best-in-class racers in the future, and both have many years of strong performance in their futures.