After an impressive turnaround in 2023, Andrea Stella believes McLaren can maintain and build on the momentum with the new MCL38 for 2024
The McLaren team is confident it can build on last year’s progress with its 2024 Formula 1 car. “So far, I have to say that we haven’t seen any setbacks,” says Team Principal Andrea Stella about the development of the new challenger this winter.
“Of course, this must first be proven when we put the car on the track,” he admits with a view to the official test drives in February.
“But when it comes to development in the wind tunnel or CFD development, we see that we can maintain the gradient that we established last year and that led to development in Austria and Singapore. So I would also expect the car to be there at the start of the season.”
As preparations continue at the Woking factory for the official launch of the new MCL38 next month, McLaren unveiled the livery in which this year’s car will race on Tuesday evening.
Stella’s tales of development are worlds away from the situation McLaren found itself in last year, when the team openly admitted at the start of the season that its new car was not good enough.
The Italian explains: “When it comes to aero efficiency, downforce and drag, it’s ultimately about numbers, and you can easily understand them. “
“We saw that we had a period of stagnation last year and we had to change direction conceptually to regain momentum in development. This year we haven’t seen that kind of plateau in development,” says Stella.
“We see that the concepts we had established in last year’s car have a lot more to offer, simply in terms of incremental gains that can be redeemed. So it’s a completely different scenario.”
Aside from the launch specification, Stella also hints that McLaren is already working on further improvements to be realized in the form of upgrades, “hopefully relatively soon in the season”. And the team boss adds: “These further developments seem to be quite interesting.”
McLaren was the first company to unveil its livery for 2024. However, there is still no date for the market launch of its new car
