Revealed: Why McLaren’s ‘ginormous’ upgrade could work even better at Imola

McLaren took victory in Miami after their “ginormous” upgrade package paid dividends, along with a well-timed Safety Car that helped Lando Norris pit and emerge in front of Max Verstappen before sailing to his first Grand Prix win.

Now, Will Joseph, Norris’ race engineer, explained how the excitement within the team is such that they hope to see “even further benefit” when they head to Imola, a circuit with characteristics which could be even more suited to the new and improved MCL38.

‘Everyone is very excited’ at McLaren after ‘ginormous’ upgrade brings success

McLaren CEO Zak Brown admitted that the myriad changes placed on Norris’ car in Miami made his chassis almost akin to a B-spec car, with team-mate Oscar Piastri receiving half of the upgrades that weekend and the other half this time around.

While Red Bull’s Max Verstappen held an edge in the first half of the Miami Grand Prix, Norris was able to pull away from the World Championship leader on fresher tyres and took advantage of a Safety Car to emerge in the lead after pitting, but to be able to build a gap to the previously dominant Red Bull driver was quite an accomplishment in itself this season.

Race engineer Joseph explained the effect this has had on the staff at McLaren, galvanising the team to continue on their journey forwards – likening the step in performance to how they made a large jump at the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix.

Alongside that, he hopes the car will be able to extract “even further benefit” in the medium and high-speed corners at Imola, with the famed Italian circuit back on the calendar this weekend.

“The upgrade that we brought was ginormous in size and the extraordinary effort by everyone back at McLaren to bring all those upgrades out to Miami…it was unfortunate we couldn’t put every single piece on both cars, but each car had a good amount of upgrades,” Joseph told the F1 Nation podcast.

“Oscar will receive the second part of that package when we get to Imola. If anything, the upgrade favours some of the traits of Imola more than it does Miami, so everyone’s very, very excited about what this can hold for the future.

“If you look back to what happened in Austria last year, we put the upgrade on then and we went well, we had good performance and, at the time, we were kind of thinking, ‘Oh, well, maybe it’s because we just go well in Austria’.

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“Then when it starts to behave well and perform at subsequent races, you start to build a confidence, you build a further understanding of how to exploit that.

“So, everyone is very excited. Not only that, but we’re working on the next round of upgrades, we’re looking ahead and we’re asking big things from the team.

“The team has given a lot in order to bring these bits here and now we’re saying, ‘Well, look, can we do it again?’ And the win in Miami, I think, helps you justify those decisions.

“And people are in, they’re excited, they’re working hard, they’re ambitious, they’re pushing hard now to see the next step.”

When asked about how the team’s upgrades might be better for them at Imola compared to Miami, Joseph rowed back slightly, clarifying: “It’s less about the specifics of Imola.

“Maybe I should reword it and say the specifics of Miami meant that it was the upgrade would be less powerful there potentially than we had seen in Imola.

“Miami has a lot of very, very low-speed corners, and the upgrade should behave better in more medium to high-speed corners.

“Therefore, when we get to Imola, which is in more favour of that kind of corner, hopefully we will see even further benefit.”

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