McLaren has seen a remarkable turnaround in 2023, after a series of mid-season updates transformed Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri's MCL60 into a regularly podium-capable car.
The recovery in form, the result of a technical restructuring implemented by the new team principal Stella, allowed the Woking team to overtake Aston Martin for fourth place in the constructors' championship.
The growth is cause for optimism for 2024, when the first car will be developed using McLaren's brand-new wind tunnel in Woking and other upgraded facilities.
But Stella is cautious not to set high expectations for next year, because then “reality can overwhelm you violently.”
“Ultimately, in Formula 1 we have the luxury of being quite quantitative. You see what kind of progress is being made in the wind tunnel and in computer simulations and you know that a certain rate of development will mean two tenths, half a second, seven tenths more at the start of the season.”
“Realistically, we know that if we want to maintain our competitiveness next year, we need to have half a second in hand. Otherwise, as we've already seen in the past, at the end it seems like we're going backwards. It's only because you're stuck and everyone is catching up.”
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Andrea Stella, Team Principal, McLaren
“So, first of all we will look at the data. We already know it more or less and I don't want to comment on it. And then, based on this, we will organize the entire team. We must not create false expectations, because then reality presents itself in a violent and we don't want to find ourselves in this position.”
“At the same time, we don't want to downplay the situation too much and then find out that we weren't ready to fight on the front line and that we didn't make good decisions for one reason or another. So we have to stick to the data, be realistic and honest. This is our philosophy.”
Stella alludes to a small regression in race pace in the final events of the 2023 season following the last major update in Singapore, which he attributes to the fact that development of the MCL60 largely ended after Singapore, while other teams continued to make small steps”.
“The way I structure the season is that we started non-competitively, we took a step forward in Austria, another step forward in Singapore. But there is a final phase of the season where we were consistent from the of development”.
“Many cars have made upgrades, some of which have been quite successful. So, it's a phase where it's not that we've worsened our performance, it's just that some other cars have closed the gap to us or even overtaken us.”
“Surely, if we want to enjoy some of the results we have achieved in this third phase after Singapore, we need to take a further step forward for next season.”
#McLaren #cautious #don39t #create #false #expectations