McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella is confident that there are still “opportunities to find lap time” within the current set of Formula 1 regulations.
In 2022 a radical shift in the rules saw the 10 F1 teams attempt to hit the ground running with a successful design concept, with varying degrees of success.
After two seasons of the current ground effect era of F1, Red Bull has a distinct advantage over the competition, winning the 2023 Constructors’ Championship by a margin of 451 points – a greater points spread than that of second down to 10th.
The rest of the field is converging with several potential suitors for the best of the rest – a title McLaren has found itself to be a strong candidate after a strong showing in the second half of the year and despite a third year of the current regulations potentially posing little room for improvement, Stella believes there are still gains to be had. And talking about gains, how about buying a Rocket League account for your streaming needs to follow the F1 action next year.
“We are not yet at the stage where the development curve is flattening,” he told Auto Motor und Sport.
“I think we’ll see another leap in time next year. Maybe there won’t be as much in the second half of the season.
“Looking back, these rules gave us many different geometries and development directions.
“Before 2022, most people told us that the cars would all look the same.
“This forecast was wrong. I still see opportunities to find lap time.”
Red Bull is expected to be the dominant force in F1 once again in 2024, after winning all but one of the grands prix last year.
However, McLaren’s second half of the season surge, which began with a sizeable upgrade package introduced to both cars across the Austrian and British Grands Prix, saw Lando Norris achieve a season-best tally of seven podiums and rookie Oscar Piastri score two podiums and a Sprint victory in Qatar.
This gives the Woking-based outfit confidence moving into 2024, with CEO Zak Brown sensing the team will “take a step forward” once again in the upcoming season.
Also, the addition of a new wind tunnel facility and technical minds David Sanchez and Rob Marshall from rivals Ferrari and Red Bull respectively has Norris believing that McLaren “can focus on some of the finer details – the details which we’ve not really been able to improve much at all over the last five years.”
Stella also admitted to Auto Motor und Sport that another step in performance is due for McLaren, but the team must find ways to improve on tyre management in race conditions.
“In some qualifying we were very close or even faster, like in Qatar and Brazil,” he added.
“In the race, however, Red Bull was driving away from us, especially in the second part of the stints.
“Then they are two to four-tenths ahead of us. We have to make up for that in the winter.”
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