Many expected that the reigning champion would disappear around Barcelona with all that Red Bull downforce, but McLaren proved it is now a serious threat
ALEX KALINAUCKAS PHOTOGRAPHY RED BULL AND
FORMULA 1
e need to leave now.” Little did Autosport know, when McLaren press attache Harry Bull’s hand came gently but firmly down upon our right shoulder, that we were on the cusp of witnessing all the good that Formula 1 can offer. Just 27 hours before Lando Norris so nearly won the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix against who else but Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, his McLaren squad was facing unexpected, serious jeopardy. The first signs were the lights going out inside the team’s giant Hub motorhome as midday approached on Saturday. Then came hurried shouts preceding the instructions for all to exit. The smoke followed, its smell hanging horribly in the air around the empty two-storey structure for the rest of the weekend in the way only an electrical fire can.
Norris left the upper level without time to put on his shoes. First Alpine, then Aston Martin team members and even Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola came charging in with additional fire extinguishers before Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya marshals and fire staff converged. Thankfully, only one McLaren team member needed hospital assessment, and they were discharged by Saturday evening. The team relocated its drivers to rooms in its engineering trucks. Its communications team decamped to the FIA’s massive motorhome. Meals were consumed in the team garage. Through it all, they persevered.
“The assistance, the solidarity, the sympathy, the support we received from each and every one of all the other teams, F1, FIA – that gave us a genuine true emotion,” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella would later reflect. “The feeling at McLaren is, we’re really impressed by the sense of community – the support that we have received. And this has made the execution of the weekend, obviously, more simple. We could keep our focus on racing, because we were taken care of.”
On Sunday, McLaren and Norris engaged in a tense contest for the Barcelona win. There was brilliant passing, strategic nous and two of F1’s best going ferociously wheel to wheel, then each charging to the finish. The sporting good followed the goodwill wonderfully.
Norris had got things under way on this front w
