Stella reacts to remarkable statement: McLaren at a disadvantage again?

McLaren look like Red Bull Racing's big challenger ahead of the 2024 F1 season. Yet Andrea Stella prevents too much optimism and also explains why they failed to achieve all their goals this winter.

It was a remarkable sentence from Stella in McLaren's press release: "There are a number of innovations on the car, but not all the areas we want to address have been completed for our launch-spec car. Those areas now become the focus of our in-season development, which is already in progress."

The fact that not all parts have been addressed yet was reminiscent of the presentation of the MCL60. Then McLaren came out with the news that the car was not at all satisfactory. That does not seem to be the case now, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri very pleased with the shakedown in the MCL38. Stella explains exactly what he means by that statement in a press briefing with GPblog.com and others.

Why McLaren are not yet completely satisfied

"It's not that the innovations didn't make it. I think it's more that some development projects didn't make it, but when you embark on some development projects, obviously, you want to target them to deliver as soon as possible, but there's full room in the way we have designed the car for these projects to land later on," said the McLaren team boss.

McLaren made a huge leap during the 2023 season. With Stella at the helm, a completely different direction was taken, and it paid off. McLaren were especially strong in the second half of the season. The question now is whether McLaren will be ready for the start of the season this year.

"So once we put the car on the ground, we will see whether we can confirm that from a development point of view. We had a step which hopefully the trajectory that we started last year in Austria continues," he added.

"In terms of developments, even if there is a budget cap, and therefore you should carefully plan your upgrades because it could be that you become budget limited, rather than development limited," Stella said. According to the Italian, McLaren are far from the limit and will, therefore, continue to work hard to close the gap with Red Bull Racing. Whether it can do so by 2024 will become clear in Bahrain.