Why Rob Marshall is ‘really impressed’ with McLaren compared to his previous role at Red Bull

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McLaren now has the fastest car in Formula 1 after Lando Norris blitzed Max Verstappen to victory in the Dutch Grand Prix by 22.8 seconds.

It was the first time Verstappen was beaten by a winning margin over 20 seconds since Lewis Hamilton in 2021, with McLaren firmly asserting themselves as the benchmark to beat.

With three wins across both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, both have also regularly finished on the podium and scored more points than Red Bull in the last nine races.

McLaren have made significant inroads to improve their performance, notably with the addition of a brand new wind tunnel that came online last season. They also made changes to their backroom staff, one of which was the hiring of ex-Red Bull engineer Rob Marshall.

Marshall has reportedly been impressed by one key aspect of McLaren since joining them according to journalist Greg Stuart when discussing on the F1 Nation podcast.

One thing that has ‘impressed’ Rob Marshall at McLaren

Marshall replaced David Sanchez in the role of chief designer in January, having left Red Bull midway through 2023.

He was part of Red Bull’s inner success team for 18 years having worked closely with Adrian Newey, contributing to their title-winning success through the early 2010s with Sebastian Vettel.

Former F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer believes Marshall has brought the ‘secret sauce’ from Red Bull to McLaren, with his influence immediately being felt.

The engineer has reportedly been impressed by McLaren’s resources behind the scenes, which has been a key aspect of their recent race-winning form.

“We’ve heard from Rob Marshall and he’s been saying what he’s been really impressed by since coming over to McLaren from Red Bull is that everything that they try out coordinates perfectly with the wind tunnel, with the simulations. So they know it’s going to work. They put it on the car and it works,” said Stuart.

McLaren’s upgrades most efficient on the grid

Since they brought a massive upgrade to the MCL38 in Miami, McLaren has not looked back and regularly either challenged for wins or finished on the podium.

Both Norris and Oscar Piastri have the pace to win races out of the box, with the team bringing minimal upgrades since then while others stumble.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Red Bull Racing from engine to Ford links

Mercedes has made significant progress since last year with their latest car upgrades, but that stalled in Zandvoort when they appeared to be the fourth quickest car.

Red Bull faces the challenge of having to revert to an older-specification car, in a bid to understand their problems and rectify their upgrade path.

Technical director Pierre Wache has explained there are three key reasons why Red Bull has struggled to add performance to the RB20, while the team is also having to contend with having the least amount of wind tunnel testing time due to F1’s aerodynamic testing restrictions.