How Ferrari gained a new edge over McLaren in the best-of-the-rest F1 2021 battle

What a season Formula 1 is having in 2021.

There are brilliant battles everywhere: Max Verstappen vs Lewis Hamilton, which rightly takes top billing as the closest multi-team title fight the championship has produced in years plays out at every round. Then there’s the contest to be F1's best 'A' team between Alpine, AlphaTauri and Aston Martin, Williams and Alfa Romeo going at it on the edge of the midfield, the Haas rookies battling at the back. Plus, Fernando Alonso vs the FIA and the vagaries of the F1 rulebook. All got these contests got a good outing last week at Austin in the gripping US Grand Prix.

But the standout battle behind the fight at the front between Mercedes and Red Bull concerns two of F1's most storied squads: McLaren vs Ferrari. And they’re scrapping to be best-of-the-rest and secure the lucrative third place in the 2021 constructors’ championship.

Both teams are on long-term rebuilding drives from big setbacks. McLaren's stems from its years of underinvestment at the end of 2010s, then the Honda misery in the middle of the last decade. Ferrari, now really a long time removed from its last titles (the 2008 constructors’ championship and Kimi Raikkonen’s narrow triumph the year before), controversially losing its engine edge and slipping out of ‘Class A’ at the start of 2020.

Both teams have excellent driver line-ups. Ferrari’s is the clear best in F1, with Carlos Sainz Jr adjusting to his new surroundings better and faster than any other driver that changed teams over the last off-season. McLaren can make the case for that accolade when Daniel Ricciardo can consistently match Lando Norris’s excellence.

The McLaren-Ferrari fight has ebbed and flowed throughout 2021.

McLaren led the way throughout the opening rounds, as Norris began his third F1 season in stunning style. Then Ferrari closed in and nipped ahead with its strong street-track form at Monaco and Baku before the team’s tyre wear misery in France and Norris’s Austria brilliance put McLaren back in front. Ferrari led again after the Hungary chaos, where both teams had drivers eliminated thanks to the gaffes from Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll.

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12, collides with Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B, at the start

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Then came Monza, where McLaren’s shock 1-2 led by Ricciardo meant it pulled 15 points clear (close to the 19-point gap that is the largest lead for either team, for McLaren after Austria) after Ferrari had taken advantage on its struggles on Zandvoort’s fast, sweeping layout.

But since the Russian GP, where both teams played a starring role as Sainz led the early stages before Norris came agonisingly close to a famous first win, Ferrari has had the edge.

The points totals don’t show it yet. McLaren still holds third place with 254 to the Scuderia’s 250.5. But Ferrari has led the way in qualifying at the last two rounds – by a massive 0.689s in Turkey thanks to Charles Leclerc’s stunner in Q3, while both Ferrari drivers led the McLarens in Austin’s Q3 two-by-two result behind the mixed up Red Bull and Mercedes cars.

“The differences between McLaren and us are very small. Since we put the new engine in, we gained a little bit, but that was enough to put us in the best position possible" Charles Leclerc

And Ferrari has been a clear step ahead in the races too, with Leclerc dropping Ricciardo by 24.6s last weekend after having an unlikely victory shot in the wet weather at Istanbul. There, Sainz finished barely behind Norris after starting at the back.

McLaren knows it's behind. And it’s worth noting that McLaren could be further ahead in the standings if Ricciardo’s efforts to adapt his style to the MCL35M had gone as well and as quickly as Sainz managed to acclimatise in the SF21.

“They've probably had a quick car for the majority of the season,” explains Norris. “But in the races, we've done better and [at Austin] we just really struggled in the race for the temperatures and so on. And with their few upgrades and engine and things, that's definitely helped them make that little step they need to be able to be ahead of us.

“[It’s a] tough one because it's not what we want so late in the season. We’ve got to try and do something more to get back ahead of them.”

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

PLUS: The key details that boosted Red Bull and hindered Mercedes at Austin

McLaren has certainly taken its best chances while Ferrari hasn’t – mainly Leclerc’s Monaco Q3 crash damage costing him the chance to convert pole into a lead he likely wouldn’t have lost, even with the rampaging Verstappen in close company.

But the engine change penalty pain he endured at Sochi and Sainz did at Istanbul was worth it.

Ferrari gave its drivers new engines to introduce an upgraded hybrid system to gather data ahead of 2022, which seems to have paid off nicely. One rival team reckons the new system has given Ferrari a 5bhp boost – not much, but not nothing. And the team itself is pleased with the gains its chassis upgrades have made in a year where such progress is limited by regulation.

“The differences between McLaren and us are very small,” says Leclerc. “Obviously since we put the new engine in, we gained a little bit, but that was enough to put us in the best position possible.

“Even though 2021 is a season where we are focusing on 2022, we still had two or three upgrades this year that pushed us to perform better every time. So yeah, it’s down to the two or three upgrades that we brought this year [that Ferrari is now in front].”

On the other side of the fight, McLaren is also grappling with the reliability problems surfacing at every Mercedes-powered squad. Ricciardo took a new engine at Istanbul and lined up alongside Sainz, unable to follow him so far up the order. Norris is one of two Mercedes customer engine drivers still going with their original engine allocation pool (the other is Aston’s Lance Stroll). He reckons the power deficit on his ageing engine parts are having an impact.

“It's definitely not helping the situation and I could have been ahead [in Austin qualifying] if it wasn't that way. But yeah, it's not my excuse. Daniel has done a great job [last] weekend and fair play to him, he was also the one ahead of the Ferrari - so he's done a good job.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21, Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M, and Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari SF21

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“And that's good for us as a team because it's been difficult the first half of the season to kind of keep Ferrari behind with him getting up the pace. But it's nice to know he's up there we can use each other more in the races and so on. That's definitely helping and limiting the pace advantage they have at the moment.”

Judging by McLaren’s struggles on the more-flowing, downforce dependent tracks this year, the upcoming races in Mexico and Brazil could be tough against the resurgent Ferrari. Qatar is a big unknown, but both teams will go to Jeddah hopeful of doing well when F1 returns to a street-track setting. In Abu Dhabi last year, McLaren was a clear step above the rest of the midfield.

“It’s been super tight this year with McLaren, they’ve had some upper hands on some circuits,” Sainz says of the formbook battle against his old team. “I think they will still have the upper hand in some of the circuits that are left this season.

“[It’s a] tough one because it's not what we want so late in the season. We’ve got to try and do something more to get back ahead of them" Lando Norris

“But the important thing is to put ourselves in a better position thanks to the effort back at the factory, and now it’s allowing us to put ourselves in a position to take the fight until the last race.

“While maybe, in Sochi and Monza, you would think they were the clear favourites to the end. Now it looks at least like we’re going to have a good chance, and we’re going to try and finish the season strongly.”

The final results of F1’s many 2021 battles will be apparent in just seven weeks. They’re all going to be worth paying attention to, but in this fight between two of the championship’s legendary marques, the outcome really matters.

There’s the extra prize money at stake, sure, plus the prestige of the highest result possible logged into the history books. But at each team it’s also about trying to ensure they start F1’s new era on the best possible foot.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21, Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M, and Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari SF21

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images