Mid-season development has turned this year’s Championship on its head. McLaren have comprehensively out-developed Red Bull this year, introducing a series of highly effective updates to the MCL38 to leapfrog the Austrian team in the standings. Despite McLaren becoming the undisputed benchmark in F1, team principal Andrea Stella wants to see further progress.
McLaren have more upgrades in the pipeline
At the beginning of the year, McLaren were the third or fourth-fastest team. Prior to the Miami GP, McLaren were generally fighting with Mercedes and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin.
However, the upgrades introduced in Miami provided a huge step forward in performance. In an ideal scenario, the improvements introduced in Florida would have been introduced earlier.
Unfortunately for Andrea Stella’s personnel, missed targets at the start of 2023 interrupted their development. Partly because of this, their recovery and rapid ascendancy is even more impressive.
Not only were their initial upgrades slightly delayed, but their upgrade philosophy has been very restrained. Despite this, they are achieving devastating results.
To add further insult to injury to their rivals, McLaren still have more updates in the pipeline. In fact, they have intentionally held back in recent months – opting against implementing some of their new components.
The rationale for this, as explained by team principal Andrea Stella, is to avoid the mistakes committed by rivals. As evidenced by Red Bull and Ferrari this year, upgrades on this generation of F1 cars are unpredictable. They often fail to produce the desired impact.
As a result, McLaren have opted to be cautious. Only relatively minor tweaks were applied to the MCL38 in Zandvoort, for example, with bigger changes to the floor left on the sidelines.
More performance to be unlocked from the MCL38
Unlike Red Bull or even Ferrari, McLaren can be relatively confident about their next set of upgrades. Adding more performance to the MCL38 should be relatively easy, considering the team’s approach in 2024 so far.
For just over twelve months now, the British team’s updates have delivered without fault. Correlation between the track and the wind tunnel has been consistently accurate, preventing any unwanted surprises on track.
Meanwhile, Red Bull have struggled to improve the RB20. The three week gap until the upcoming American GP gives the reigning Champions – like the rest of the field – some time to produce more upgrades.
However, there is no guarantee Red Bull can find solutions in this window. After almost six months of stagnant development, the problems plaguing Red Bull are far more fundamental than they would like.
Their situation is polar opposite to that of McLaren, who are confident about increasing their performance advantage over the Austrian team.
