McLaren has closed the gap to Red Bull. The update successes began in the middle of the 2023 season, when McLaren caught up with the leading teams like Mercedes and Ferrari. Now the Papayas are at Red Bull level. But there will hardly be any more super updates with huge leaps in performance, thinks McLaren team boss Andrea Stella. The development of the Formula 1 cars of the ground effect era is becoming more difficult. Updates sometimes even set the teams back.
Andrea Stella: We have reached a point where things are getting difficult
The best example of stagnating development is currently the two Red Bull teams. While the Racing Bulls are still struggling with an update introduced in Spain, the former dominators of Red Bull are now barely faster than the competition.
“I find it interesting because it looks like we have reached a point where development is becoming difficult. There is more than one team that is affected and they are saying: we expected to be faster or we did not anticipate a problem,” said McLaren team boss Andrea Stella.
Formula 1 teams are treading water
The same applies to Aston Martin. The team from Silverstone has made the most updates to its car this season, but is still constantly moving further back in the field instead of moving forward. While Fernando Alonso was on a par with Mercedes at the start of the season and even announced that a move to the Silver Arrows would not be progress, Aston Martin is now a whopping 153 points behind Mercedes.
Ferrari is also currently treading water. The major updates made in Imola brought visible changes to the car, but no visible step in performance. Mercedes seems to have overtaken the Italians.
Fewer updates seem to be more. Mercedes recently made a major update to the car in Monaco. Haas, which is struggling with a small budget and therefore also tends to have fewer updates, seems to have overtaken the Racing Bulls in the performance rankings for the time being.
“What we see is that you definitely have to be more careful when it comes to understanding the new parts. Because the aerodynamics of these cars are very complex and they challenge even our development tools,” explains Andrea Stella. Big leaps like those in 2023 therefore seem almost impossible.
Bringing new updates to your own car now also seems to involve a risk. In the currently very tight field in the premier class, no one can afford a new problem with the car, stagnating performance or even a step backwards. “You have to use all your expertise, gather self-confidence and then press the green button. And you have to make sure that the development stage is mature,” explains Stella.