McLaren scored 117.2 BOTT points in Austria without winning a classification. Three podiums and five top-five finishes made it second for the round behind Ferrari's 157.7.
The cumulative order was even tighter: VCARB held second on 155.5 points and McLaren followed on 155.4. One tenth separated the teams after two weekends.
Round pace meets opening-round debt
Austria alone favoured McLaren over VCARB by 55 points: 117.2 against 62.2. The standings still placed VCARB ahead because the championship carries every earlier score with it.
That arithmetic turns a winless weekend into a genuine storyline. McLaren did nearly everything required to erase its opening deficit, only for the final decimal place to preserve the previous order.
Ferrari remains in another postcode
The fight for second should not obscure first. Ferrari's total reached 291.9, 136.4 ahead of VCARB. McLaren had closed on one rival while the leader extended far beyond both.
Hungary therefore offered two separate tests: could McLaren find the missing tenth against VCARB, and could either team begin making Ferrari's advantage look less like a head start and more like a contest?
