Jolyon Palmer believes he’s identified McLaren’s ‘Achilles heel’ during pre-season testing

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Former Formula 1 driver and pundit Jolyon Palmer has shared what he thinks could be McLaren’s Achilles heel heading into the 2024 F1 season.

After three days of pre-season testing, every team will have a much better idea of what they can expect when qualifying rolls around on Friday in Bahrain.

Reviewing last week’s action for Sky Sports F1’s YouTube channel, Palmer was positive about the papaya-coloured car but had one potential grievance.

Palmer shares what he thinks is McLaren’s ‘Achilles heel’

An awful lot has been made of the steps forward McLaren made in 2023.

To go from near the back of the grid to regularly achieving podiums is a remarkable feat, but was achieved by the team fixing some obvious issues with the car.

Developing the MCL38 for 2024 was never going to be as straightforward a step although they did look strong in testing.

While they weren’t on the same level as Red Bull, that was always going to be a stretch considering their domination last year.

However, Palmer believes he’s spotted an Achilles heel in McLaren’s new car that may affect Oscar Piastri in particular.

The young Australian was sensational last year but there are still areas where he can improve.

There’s a worry that the new car might exaggerate some of his weaknesses rather than highlight his strengths.

McLaren’s MCL38 not the finished car

Speaking about Zak Brown and Andrea Stella’s team, Palmer said: “I’m going to stick [McLaren] in third, they started the test really well, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri racking up some mileage on day one and the car looked very quick straight out of the box.

“They weren’t too aggressive with their tyre choice, they didn’t have any softer compounds of tyre to throw on.

“They were very methodical, running through their test program rigorously, waiting while others got the early mileage in, then they went out and again the car hit the track and looked very nice straight away.

“Remember this is a team that had such a big development curve last year, obviously they’re in a better place than they were last year because that was pretty bad.

“What they want to do is get to a position where either their so far Grand Prix winless drivers can take one this year, I think they might do that.

“But what concerns me is that race running. Oscar Piastri got in the car this afternoon and didn’t do the most complete race run, had quite a lot of degradation which was his Achilles heel.

“He showed so much one lap pace but the race running wasn’t great. That looked the same and the problem was, Lando Norris didn’t do a race simulation run.

“A bit of reliability concerns for McLaren meant he only did 20 laps today and didn’t get a race run yesterday afternoon either, so that’s a question mark for me at McLaren.”

Piastri and Norris racing to achieve first Grand Prix win

McLaren have one of the most exciting driver line-ups on the grid and while they have huge potential, they’re not proven winners at the highest level yet.

That’s mainly due to them not having the car underneath them capable of winning races, although Lando Norris should probably have a Grand Prix victory under his belt were it not for a few suspect strategy calls in the past.

Piastri has highlighted the weaknesses that McLaren still need to address that could prove to be their Achilles heel, but they’re in much better shape than they were 12 months ago.

After being the best of the rest on occasions as the 2023 campaign came to an end, they’ll hope they’ve maintained that position when qualifying begins in Bahrain on Friday.