McLaren accomplished their return to the highest of the F1 pecking order in 2024 by overcoming Crimson Bull and Ferrari and profitable the Constructors’ Championship for the primary time in additional than 20 years. It marks a spectacular restoration from the Woking-based outfit, who solely not too long ago discovered themselves working on the very again of the sector. F1.com relives the rollercoaster journey…
A troubled Honda reunion
In 2013, McLaren decided that will inadvertently result in one of many hardest phases within the group’s historical past, having signed an influence unit cope with former companions Honda for 2015 and past to attempt to add to their golden era across the late-1980s and early-1990s.
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However it quickly grew to become clear, underneath F1’s new and extremely advanced turbo-hybrid period, that the second partnership could be far more difficult – the desires of world titles rapidly turning right into a nightmare of retirements, grid penalties and struggles for factors.
Frustrations grew and grew by way of 2015, 2016 and 2017, with McLaren classifying a lowly ninth, sixth and ninth within the constructors’ standings throughout these respective seasons and scoring a greatest race end of fifth.
It was no shock, then, that world champion pairing Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button – who copped a record-breaking penalty of 105 locations on the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix resulting from energy unit modifications – made their emotions recognized.
