{"id":278898,"date":"2025-04-10T15:39:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T15:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/10\/lewis-hamilton-happy-his-old-team-mclaren-is-competitive-again-despite-losing-out-for-2nd-at-british-gp\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T15:39:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T15:39:03","slug":"lewis-hamilton-happy-his-old-team-mclaren-is-competitive-again-despite-losing-out-for-2nd-at-british-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/10\/lewis-hamilton-happy-his-old-team-mclaren-is-competitive-again-despite-losing-out-for-2nd-at-british-gp\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton happy his old team McLaren is competitive again despite losing out for 2nd at British GP"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lewis<\/div>


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Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton is happy his old team McLaren is competitive in Formula One again, even if it is at his expense.<\/p>\n

The seven-time champion lost an all-British tussle to McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris for second place in their home Grand Prix on Sunday. Norris even overtook all-conquering Red Bull driver Max Verstappen at the start to lead the race briefly. Getting the better of Verstappen has been almost impossible this season.<\/p>\n

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On the fast tracks like Silverstone, Norris said, \u201cWe\u2019re almost on a par with what Red Bull can achieve.\u201d The McLaren car was quick in qualifying Saturday and on race day, he added: \u201cWe definitely seem to maintain our performance when others seem to take a bit of a hit.\u201d Not bad for a team which didn\u2019t score any points at five of the first eight GP weekends.<\/p>\n

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Hamilton described the McLaren car \u2014 which is newly competitive after an aerodynamic upgrade \u2014 as a \u201crocket ship\u201d and sent \u201cbig congratulations to Lando and to McLaren, where it was my family, where I first started.\u201d \u201cIt was a great battle we had but it\u2019s really amazing to see the McLaren back up in competitive form,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cIt\u2019s been such a long time.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hamilton was the last driver to win the championship for McLaren in 2008.<\/p>\n

The McLaren might just be the car Mercedes could have had.<\/p>\n

It uses the same Mercedes engines but with an aerodynamic package which resembles the dominant Red Bull of Verstappen, especially after upgrades first used by Norris at the previous race in Austria. McLaren had scored just 17 points all season before then. Now it has 59.<\/p>\n

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Mercedes, by contrast, has struggled since opting to design its 2022 car around small, sleek side pods. That seemed daring when first revealed last year but has arguably hampered Mercedes\u2019 options to improve and made it harder to follow innovations from other teams like Red Bull with more conventional designs.<\/p>\n

McLaren was also racing in Britain with a chromed livery harking back to the Silver Arrows look with Mercedes engines when McLaren won titles in the 1990s and 2000s, including Hamilton\u2019s first F1 championship in \u201908.<\/p>\n

Even more encouragingly for McLaren, Norris\u2019 rookie teammate Oscar Piastri showed he\u2019s getting comfortable in F1 with a fourth-place finish that Norris said \u201cshould have been P3\u201d but for an unfortunately timed safety car that hurt Piastri\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n

McLaren fought a legal tussle with Alpine last year over who had the rights to the promising Australian driver for 2023 after Piastri publicly rejected Alpine.<\/p>\n

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As McLaren struggled earlier this season and Alpine scored regular points, it seemed he might have been better off with the French team after all. At Silverstone, though, McLaren leaped above Alpine to fifth in the constructors\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n

Still, McLaren won\u2019t be the star at every circuit. Norris was full of praise for the car\u2019s high-speed performance but admitted it remains \u201cpretty terrible in the slow-speed corners, extremely difficult to drive.\u201d That won\u2019t help at the next race on July 23 in Hungary, where the average speed is among the slowest of any F1 circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting excited and I accept that,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re going to go to a couple of tracks where I\u2019m sure people are going to be saying What have you done now? Like, how has it got so bad all of a sudden?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n