{"id":733544,"date":"2026-06-13T07:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/733544\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T07:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:31:12","slug":"practice-debrief-are-mclaren-really-back-in-the-fight-against-mercedes-at-the-barcelona-catalunya-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/733544\/","title":{"rendered":"PRACTICE DEBRIEF: Are McLaren really back in the fight against Mercedes at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">There are few tracks that Formula 1 teams and drivers know better than the Circuit Barcelona-Catalunya, given it has long been a popular venue for testing thanks to its good mix of corners \u2013 and it&#8217;s for that reason the venue tends to give a good indication of the pecking order. McLaren&#8217;s Lando Norris was quickest on Friday, fractionally quicker than Mercedes&#8217; George Russell \u2013 but are McLaren really back in the fight?<\/p>\n<p>After the run McLaren have had, we weren&#8217;t expecting them to be on top. Is that pace real?<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">I&#8217;m not sure they were either! It&#8217;s too early to say if they&#8217;re the ones to beat but based on the data and what the team and their rivals are thinking, <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" data-f1rd-a7s-click=\"rich_text_atom_click\" data-f1rd-a7s-context=\"eyJhY3Rpb25UeXBlIjoibWNsYXJlbl9saW5rX2NsaWNrZWQiLCJjbGlja1RleHQiOnRydWUsInBhdGgiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5mb3JtdWxhMS5jb20vZW4vdGVhbXMvbWNsYXJlbiIsInBhdGhUeXBlIjoiaW50ZXJuYWwifQ==\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/teams\/mclaren\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">McLaren<\/a> certainly look like they are fighting at the sharp end again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are few tracks that Formula 1 teams and drivers know better than the Circuit Barcelona-Catalunya, given it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-733544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}