"I saw the car, I was like, ‘wow’": McLaren boss shares his first reaction when he saw the 2024 Red Bull car

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella was surprised after he first saw Red Bull's RB20. He dove deep into how the reigning world champions developed their 2024 F1 challenger.

As quoted by The Race, Stella stated that he was 'wowed' by the RB20. He said that the massive advantage in 2023 gave Red Bull some leeway to 'take risks' and test a slightly different development path.

“I have to say, when I saw the car, I was like, ‘wow’ - they certainly were brave in changing some of the shapes that made that car that was so successful last year. They could enjoy such an advantage last year, that gave them the confidence from a timeline point of view to take some risks early on to actually see whether it works,” he said.

The McLaren team boss feels Red Bull started developing new parts for 2024 during the 2023 F1 season. He added that the team did not bring new parts to the 2023 F1 car since they were focused on next year's chassis.

“First of all, car design, there's some element of significant evolution on that car that certainly required time to be developed. And this is the time that we were referring to in terms of Red Bull not having developed last year parts that were not introduced on the 2023 car. The second element is the performance itself. It looks like they are very strong,” Stella added.

Despite having a dominant car in 2023, the Austrian-British team was bold enough to introduce brand-new car parts for 2024. They changed most of the chassis parts, including the side pods, the bargeboards, and the side floor.

On day one of the 2024 F1 pre-season testing, the RB20 topped the charts, with Max Verstappen being 1.14 seconds ahead of second-placed Lando Norris.

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Helmut Marko shares realistic advantage Red Bull's RB20 could have over its rivals

After the first day of pre-season testing, Max Verstappen was just over a second ahead of the pack. However, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko explained why the RB20 is not a second faster than everyone else.

Marko clarified that the team estimates an advantage of three-tenths of a second over the F1 grid. He added that the 1.14-second gap was because Verstappen was on fresh medium tires in the evening, which helped him create such a massive gap.

"We estimate the actual lead at three-tenths. The [1.14s] lead is not as big as it looks. We were the only ones who went on the track in the cool evening hours with fresh medium tires. This explains the big jump we made in the afternoon," said Marko, via Auto Motor und Sport.

On day two of testing, Sergio Perez drove the RB20 the entire day and finished second in the timing sheets. He was seven-tenths of a second behind Ferrari's Carlos Sainz.