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McLaren F1 team principal Andrea Stella believes his team can catch Red Bull in a year if they continue to develop at a strong rate.
After a difficult start to the 2023 season, McLaren turned their season around after bringing big upgrades to the Austrian Grand Prix in June.
Since then, the team have racked up 11 podiums and a sprint victory, with the strong development path from last year carried into 2024, allowing the squad to compete for best of the rest behind Red Bull.
Stella feels that, if McLaren can continue to develop at the rate it has over the past 12 months, then the team could potentially be challenging the current champions for victories in 2025.
“I think overall if we take the 12-month period, we have developed more than anybody else,” said Stella. “I think Red Bull did not develop very much last year.”
“Clearly, they were working quite a lot in the background because they innovated the car dramatically.
“And to innovate the car like they did – it takes months of redesign. They were doing all this work, and then they came with a new car, it was a big step.
“So even if apparently, we have lost some ground, we lost some ground because we gained so much ground before and while they were not developing.
“That’s why we need to look at things over the long period. Over the long period we are in a strong trajectory. For me, this is also what we say internally: if we keep this trajectory of development for the next 12 months, then why not? We may reach Red Bull.”
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McLaren Upgrades coming this weekend
McLaren are set to bring a series of upgrades for the Miami Grand Prix this weekend, and while Stella says that they will not be as powerful as the ones introduced at Austria and Singapore last year, they should still be a “decent step” and offer “noticeable” performance gains.
“We’re going to have some upgrades in Miami, let’s see how they perform,” said Stella. “And then like for everyone, there’s a lot of people at the factory that are all focused on generating developments and it’s always a battle of development.
“That’s the real job in Formula 1, just constantly improve cars, and that’s what we have to do.
“This upgrade will not be as big as the two that we had delivered last year in Austria and Singapore, but it should be a decent step; it should be noticeable, if things correlate with our expectation, with the wind tunnel numbers, for instance, and with computer simulation.
“It’s always a big if. Because, you know, even if the hit rate of this correlation has been good over the last 12 months, there’s always possible surprises.”