McLaren start 2024 confident they have continued the strong progress they made last year – but wary of the potential performance of Red Bull.
Lando Norris scored more points than any other driver bar Max Verstappen last season after McLaren upgraded their car for July’s Austrian Grand Prix.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said his team have “not seen diminishing returns” in development of their new car.
But he is concerned the same will be the case for dominant champions Red Bull.
“Red Bull should be extremely competitive and we will see where we are and what kind of challenge we will be able to set on track,” Stella said.
Last year, Red Bull and Verstappen produced the most dominant season in Formula 1 history.
The Dutchman won 19 of the 22 races and his team-mate Sergio Perez two of the remaining three.
McLaren started 2023 with one of the slowest cars in the field but emerged as one of the leading contenders behind Red Bull in the second half of the season thanks to a remarkably effective development programme.
And McLaren feel that while their new car is looking promising, Red Bull will make at least as much progress with their new design.
Stella, talking at an event at which McLaren launched their 2024 livery, said the team had been able to continue the major steps forward they made for Austria and a subsequent major upgrade in Singapore in September.
“The gradient we established last year that led to the Austria and Singapore development, it seems like we can maintain it,” Stella said.
“In the background, we are already starting to work on further developments which we hope to bring relatively soon in the season and they also seem to be quite interesting.
“In terms of the regulations themselves and the development at McLaren, we seem like a linear gradient of development can be maintained.”
But he pointed out that Red Bull stopped developing last year’s car relatively early in the season, which could be an ominous sign for their 2024 form.
“Competitiveness on track depends on what the opposition has done,” Stella said. “When we think specifically about Red Bull, there is one element that puts everyone in doubt as to what is going to happen in 2024, and it’s the fact that they have not developed their car very much.
“So the question is have they cashed in, accumulated developments, and they will capitalise on to next year’s car? This is my theory.
“I can’t think that Red Bull were not in condition to develop their car. They might have decided not to deliver upgrades, but certainly this may mean their [development] gradient kept going.”
Aiming to secure Norris’ future
McLaren head into 2024 with one of the strongest driver line-ups on the grid, with Australian Oscar Piastri alongside Norris.
In an impressive debut season, Piastri won the sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix – taking an F1 victory before Norris has managed – and secured an extended McLaren contract until the end of 2026.
Norris’ contract expires a year before that, and McLaren are determined to secure an extension with the Briton.
McLaren Racing chief executive officer Zak Brown said: “My primary role is to get the right people in place and give him the right resources and support. That is Andrea and the entire team.
“When you have desires of getting back to winning the World Championship, you need the management, technology and infrastructure and of course the two grand prix drivers. We have all those in place.
“We have Lando under contract for another couple of years. Of course, we are in dialogue with him on a continuous basis.
“He is starting to think through [his future], as we are – 2026 is not far away and we recognise that being able to retain Lando and Oscar is a key element and something that is a high priority for us.”
Concern over Red Bull’s B team
Brown returned to a theme he has raised a couple of times in recent months in expressing concerns about the relationship between Red Bull and their junior team.
Alpha Tauri – who are changing their name this season and will announce their new identity in the coming weeks – are moving to a situation where they take as many parts as is permitted under the rules for their car.
While this is similar to the relationship Haas have had with Ferrari since 2016, Brown fears that in the context of Red Bull’s domination and the budget cap that keeps every team’s spending in check, it could give their second team an unintended advantage.
“I’m concerned over the Alpha Tauri-Red Bull alliance,” Brown said. “Alpha Tauri is, from what I understand, moving to the UK, which will benefit both teams. This A/B team and co-ownership is a big concern of ours for the health and fairness of the sport.
“When these [rules] were put in place, the sport was in a different place. You had a huge gap between people like ourselves, who had huge budgets, and the smaller teams. And now everyone is pretty much at the cap if not at the cap.
“So everyone is playing with the same size bat to use a baseball term and therefore that [sharing parts] is not necessary. But it might give someone an unfair advantage and it’s something we need to tackle as a sport quickly.
“I would like to see us focus on that as an industry before it gets to where F1 once was, which is very out of balance because people are playing by the rules but a different set of rules.”