Shortly after the presentation of the new car, the head of McLaren stated that the new McLaren MCL38 will undergo certain changes at the beginning of the season.
McLaren presented the new MCL38 single-seater on Wednesday morning, with which it would like to build on the performance from the second half of last season, when the British team regularly collected podiums.
“We had three main goals. The first was to increase aerodynamic efficiency, the second was to improve mechanical grip and the third was to promote interaction with the tyres,” McLaren boss Andrea Stella, quoted by Autosport, said of the areas the team focused on when developing the MCL38.
“I would not like to give any ratios, but I would say that we have managed to move forward in all three of these areas, although we see that there is potential for further improvement in each of them,” the Italian added.
However, Stella’s next words do not sound so optimistic. The boss of McLaren admitted that the team does not have enough time to put all the planned innovations on the car before the start of the season. It seems that last year’s scenario could be repeated in the case of the organization from Woking.
“We have a few projects lined up that have potential, but we haven’t finished them in time to use them on the car now, so probably some of the new parts will be part of the upgrades during the start of the season,” explained Stella, who nevertheless believes the team he leads can maintain the upward performance curve of 2023.
“Once we get the car on track, we’ll see if we can confirm that we’ve made a step in terms of development that will hopefully maintain the trajectory that we started last year in Austria and intensified in Singapore. However, there is a budget cap, so development must be carefully planned so that you don’t end up having to shut it down due to insufficient budget.
“In any case, we will push hard on development and as soon as some new parts are ready, we will put them on the car. Subsequently, we will see if we run into the limit of the budget ceiling or our ideas,” added Stella.
