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Formula 1: McLaren vs. Renault shaping up to be ‘best of the rest’ battle

By Asher Fair

MONTE-CARLO, MONACO - MAY 26: Daniel Ricciardo of Australia driving the (3) Renault Sport Formula One Team RS19 leads Lando Norris of Great Britain driving the (4) McLaren F1 Team MCL34 Renault on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco on May 26, 2019 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Charles Coates/Getty Images)
MONTE-CARLO, MONACO - MAY 26: Daniel Ricciardo of Australia driving the (3) Renault Sport Formula One Team RS19 leads Lando Norris of Great Britain driving the (4) McLaren F1 Team MCL34 Renault on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco on May 26, 2019 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Charles Coates/Getty Images) /
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While six teams are close together in the battle for Formula 1’s unofficial “best of the rest” title, the battle is shaping up to be McLaren vs. Renault.

Through the first seven races of the 21-race 2019 Formula 1 season, the battle for the sport’s unofficial “best of the rest” title has been extremely close.

To this day, the six teams other than the sport’s top three teams, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Scuderia Ferrari and Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, and other than the lowly ROKiT Williams Racing can be thrown under one blanket when it comes to the constructor standings.

Pretty much any team from fourth through ninth place in the team standings have been in position to potentially make the move to fourth after each of the season’s first seven races.

Here are the current “best of the rest” team standings.

Rank – Constructor: Points (Behind)
4th (1st) – McLaren-Renault: 30 (-)
5th (2nd) – Renault: 28 (-2)
6th (3rd) – Racing Point-Mercedes: 19 (-11)
7th (4th) – Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda: 17 (-13)
8th (5th) – Haas-Ferrari: 16 (-14)
9th (6th) – Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari: 13 (-17)

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These standings could be completely shaken up after pretty much any race, but it seems safe to say at this point that the two teams at the top, the two Renault-powered teams, will be the two teams that end up battling for the right to be considered the “best of the rest”.

Both McLaren and Renault have been picking up momentum as of late, and they continued that momentum into the qualifying session for the season’s eighth race, the French Grand Prix, at Circuit Paul Ricard. McLaren teammates Lando Norris, a rookie, and Carlos Sainz Jr. qualified in fifth and sixth place, respectively. Most notably, they both qualified ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in seventh.

Additionally, Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo notably qualified in eighth ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Pierre Gasly, the driver who replaced him at the Milton Keynes-based team ahead of the 2019 season, in ninth.

After recording just one points finish in the season’s first three races, McLaren’s two drivers have recorded four points finishes in the last four races, and after recording just two points finishes in the season’s first five races, Renault drivers have now recorded three of them in the last two races. In the season’s seventh race, the Canadian Grand Prix, they even took sixth and seventh place ahead of Gasly in eighth.

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Which team will win the unofficial “best of the rest” title when the 2019 Formula 1 season concludes? Even with 14 races still remaining on the schedule, this battle looks like it could be a close, back-and-forth battle between McLaren and Renault, especially given the strengths that these two Renault-powered teams have displayed over the last few races.

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