F1 News
McLaren versus Ferrari: Which team will come out on top in 2021?
- GPblog.com
With four races already crossed off the calendar, a provisional ranking can be drawn up in the constructors' battle of 2021. Where Mercedes and Red Bull are comfortably in places one and two there is once again tension in the middle. Legendary racing teams McLaren and Ferrari currently occupy places three and four, but which of the two came out on top in the first four races?
McLaren already set the tone in 2020 with an impressive third place in the constructors' classification. With Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, the British racing team continues this development. With 65 points the team is once again third, behind Red Bull Racing and Mercedes.
View this post on Instagram
Scuderia Ferrari follows with a relatively small difference. The team has started the season much better than last year when Mattia Binotto's team finished a meagre sixth in the Constructors' Championship. Necessary updates have ensured that the team is back in the top ten more often than not, and this is reflected in the 2021 rankings: with 60 points, Ferrari is currently fourth.
Whereas McLaren has dominated the first four races, Ferrari achieved a significantly better result in Spain than its British rival. The team took home 18 points here, mostly due to Leclerc's fourth place, allowing them to further narrow the gap to P3.
Clear division of roles
Also noteworthy is the similarity between the points gained by the four drivers, and the balance of power this implies within the team. With his mediocre start, Ricciardo only managed 24 points for the team, while Norris almost doubles this number in the same number of races. A similar situation is taking place at Ferrari, where Charles Leclerc has scored twice as many points as Sainz. It will be interesting to see how far these ratios change over the course of the season, once both newcomers are fully incorporated and acclimatised to their teams.