Optimistic McLaren boss predicts major upgrades into early season at 2023 F1 car launch

McLaren boss Andres Stella has said that the team will be bringing a major upgrade to the car early in the season. The Woking-based squad launched their 2023 F1 challenger but aren't entirely happy with the car.

McLaren have has been a top midfield contender in the last few years but have taken a step back in the last two seasons. Ater peaking in 2020 with a P3 finish, they dropped to P4 in 2021 and P5 last year.

At the launch of the team's new car in its 60th year in F1, Stella said that the team feels there are some areas where some major development can be done. For that reason, the team will bring a major upgrade early in the season. Stella explained:

"It is always difficult to translate what you see over the winter in terms of development to where you're going to be in terms of pecking order. But we try to relate this to ourselves. Like I said before, I think while we are happy with the development of the car in most of the areas, there's some areas in which we kind of realised a little late in development, some really strong directions. So not necessarily we have been able to capitalise this direction in the very short term."

Regarding the timeline about when McLaren could introduce the said upgrade, Stella said that it could happen as early as the fourth race of the season:

"That's why also I talk about the developments coming after the start of the season. So in this sense, I just invoke realism. In a way, it's more relative to ourselves. But it's such a competitive game that I would be surprised if (we are there immediately)."

He added:

"Normally you need to be totally happy and totally at the top of what you can do to achieve your targets. In terms of development (timing), hopefully a couple of months into the season, hopefully less. So this may coincide with race four. We will see how rapidly we can get this project to land."

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"Aerodynamics is the name of the game" - McLaren boss

Comparing the McLaren challenger's performance to last season, Stella said that the current car is an improvement, as multiple areas of opportunities to make aerodynamic gains were identified. He said:

"Assessing our performance last year and looking at comparing those, we identified multiple areas of opportunities. The good news is that pretty much all of them have been addressed. I wouldn't want to be too specific, but certainly they have to do predominantly with aerodynamics."

He added:

"Aerodynamics is the name of the game in F1, so no mystery, but there's some areas, for instance, in terms of interaction with the tyres, where there's some work that we needed to do, and this was done over the winter."

McLaren will field a rather inexperienced lineup of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri this season. It will be interesting to see how the two drivers get on with each other.