Zak Brown, McLaren Formula 1 CEO, claims the team is fully aware of potential Red Bull threat next year. He believes the title defender team is capable of “unpleasant surprise” while taking great step forward with its 2024 car.
Red Bull has downplayed its chances of repeating the last year’s performance on track. It shocked everyone on track while winning all races except one last year. Contending teams are very mindful of the same this year.
McLaren remained the consistent and closest contender of all for the Red Bull. The team remains very concerned about its potential and progress.
The title defending squad had completed it 2023 car development early in the season. It shows that Red Bull spent most of the season concentrating on 2024 car.
Brown hoped, at McLaren’s 2024 liver launch, to have closed the gap with Red Bull this year. On the other hand, he believes it is very important to be realistic of the ground situation.
“Clearly we want to continue to close the gap,” he said. “We finished up last year as the second or third quickest team, depending on what circuit you were at.
“Car development has been strong, but Red Bull certainly seems like they didn’t develop last year to the level they could if they wanted to. So that could be an unpleasant surprise for all of us.”
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McLaren is very optimistic about its progress because of encouraging result of CFD and wind tunnel tests. It believes to have made huge progress with its 2024 car.
Nonetheless, team boss Andrea Stella shares similar concerns. “When it comes to competitiveness on track, this depends on what the opposition has done,” he said.
“When we think specifically about Red Bull, there’s one element that obviously I think puts everyone in doubt as to what’s going to happen in 2024. It’s the fact that they haven’t developed their car very much [towards the end of last year].
“So, the question is, have they cashed in, and accumulated development that 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, so they might have decided not to deliver upgrades. Certainly, this may mean that their gradient [of improvement] kept going.”
