{"id":17855,"date":"2024-01-03T15:42:50","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T20:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=17855"},"modified":"2024-01-03T15:46:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T20:46:26","slug":"mclaren-feeling-good-about-f1-2024-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/01\/03\/mclaren-feeling-good-about-f1-2024-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren &#8220;feeling good&#8221; about F1 2024 progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>McLaren is optimistic about its chances in 2024, having concluded last season in increasingly strong form.<\/h3>\n<p>Just under a year ago, Andrea Stella admitted that McLaren <a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/mclaren-aggression-missed-target\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">failed to reach its winter targets.<\/a> Alongside CEO Zak Brown, he made no secret that the MCL60 would get off to a poor start.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Italian team principal was equally confident that <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/01\/03\/f1-news-wind-tunnel-allocations-for-2024-take-effect\/\" target=\"_self\">mid-season development<\/a> would change the team&#8217;s trajectory.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, whilst these comments were still significant, few could have foreseen their implications.<\/p>\n<p>McLaren catapulted themselves to the front with their update packages, the most notable one being in Austria. Lando Norris soon became a regular podium finisher, with Oscar Piastri also putting himself in contention.<\/p>\n<p>In many ways, the Woking-based outfit has all the ingredients to succeed in Formula 1. There hasn&#8217;t been any shortage of investment in recent years, as the team rebuilt itself after a nightmare start to the hybrid era.<\/p>\n<p>Brown and Stella deserve credit in equal measure for leading McLaren&#8217;s resurgence in their respective areas.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"yA3H37INQXBVrbrgl9cYig\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1809244163\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'yA3H37INQXBVrbrgl9cYig',sig:'6fcMyoZ9NZ-rc_oFqTK-ck1zj9YLe_iXBf26md9MYQQ=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1809244163',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>McLaren prepares for the real test<\/h3>\n<p>Despite this recent success, the greatest challenge is yet to come. As demonstrated by the AMR23&#8217;s decline, staying at the front is a greater challenge than getting there.<\/p>\n<p>After all, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/01\/01\/esteban-ocon-looking-forward-to-fighting-for-f1-titles\/\" target=\"_self\">one-off results<\/a> are achievable for most semi-competitive outfits. Only the best can compete at the sharp end for extended periods.<\/p>\n<p>This is why, amongst many other reasons, 2024 is so essential for McLaren.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from the obvious importance of winning races, the next twelve months could show how far the team has progressed.<\/p>\n<p>Zak Brown has explained what the team&#8217;s objectives are:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;We hope to start the season kind of where we finished off,&#8221; he told Sky F1.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It will be interesting to see where everybody starts, but we&#8217;re feeling good about our development.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I think we learned a lot, so I anticipate a much stronger start to 2024 than we had in 2023.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a id=\"6KUSFGymRD9eKZElC4sfnQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1435627032\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'6KUSFGymRD9eKZElC4sfnQ',sig:'fWo65OXQNXP6uVmMAmlA309lsCWVPvYTgO_apNrQ6BA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1435627032',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>To some degree, McLaren is punching above its weight. Many of their latest development projects were either completed in 2023 or &#8211; in other cases &#8211; are still being built.<\/p>\n<p>This means that 2026 will be the year when (combined with fresh regulations) everything should be in place.<\/p>\n<p>However, their long-term ambitions cannot become an excuse for their immediate success. This certainly wasn&#8217;t the case last year, and McLaren F1 has an opportunity to establish itself as a legitimate top team once more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>McLaren is optimistic about its chances in 2024, having concluded last season in increasingly strong form. Just under a year ago, Andrea Stella admitted that McLaren failed to reach its winter targets. Alongside CEO Zak Brown, he made no secret that the MCL60 would get off to a poor start. However, the Italian team principal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":17856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,68,23,66],"class_list":["post-17855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-mclaren"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}