Which was faster: McLaren or Red Bull?

The recently completed season was extremely exciting in terms of determining the champion driver. At the start of the season, McLaren’s drivers pulled well clear of their rivals in the points standings, but after the mid-season break, the situation was completely reversed.

Max Verstappen managed to erase a points deficit of more than 100 and ultimately missed out on the title by just two points to Lando Norris. Against this backdrop, the key question widely debated was: did McLaren build the stronger car, or was it Red Bull?

The RaceFans.net website produced a fascinating set of statistics. The data shows how much slower each of the ten teams was compared to the strongest team in each race, expressed as a percentage. For example, if McLaren was the strongest in Australia and taken as 0%, Red Bull, the closest rival in that race, was 0.51% slower.

Rather than presenting the results of all teams individually, we have created a chart showing the relative performance of McLaren and Red Bull in each race. The chart also includes the average performance level of all ten teams alongside the two rivals.

Overall, McLaren had the strongest car in 14 of the 24 races, Red Bull in 8, and Mercedes in 2. McLaren won 11 of those races, Red Bull won 5, while Mercedes claimed victory in both races where it held the performance advantage.