Are McLaren copying Red Bull? 'Everyone takes inspiration from them'

In Austria, McLaren came with a lot of upgrades. Only Lando Norris had them available there, and he immediately recorded McLaren's best result of the season (P4) at the Red Bull Ring. On Saturday in Britain, things went even better. Here McLaren took second and third places. According to Mercedes, the MCL60 looks a lot like Red Bull Racing's dominant RB19 these days.

In the UK, Oscar Piastri also received the well-functioning upgrades. The Australian immediately made good use of these: Piastri qualified third behind teammate Norris. Lewis Hamilton had a striking explanation for the suddenly fast McLaren; the car looks a lot like Red Bull's. Andrea Stella admitted that his team took inspiration from the Austrian team but stressed that it was not a copy.

"I'm sure all teams got inspiration from looking at the Red Bull car like they get inspiration from all the photos that teams get off any other car. Pretty much all teams have professional photographers that take as much opportunities as possible, and this is inspiration. I would detract off our aerodynamic department if I said: ‘Oh, yeah, we saw that and now we have the solution,'" the McLaren team boss told GPblog and others.

According to Stella, the key is to understand that a different concept can be better in the long run. "You see it, and you get some thoughts that maybe you can do this. But then you have to do your own job with your own iteration, otherwise you don't get to something that actually works. The key element is understanding that some concepts have more potential that will allow you to develop faster and for longer."