“Red Bull are quite lucky that it’s taken McLaren this long” - Aston Martin employee talks about the Papaya team’s meteoric F1 rise this season

Aston Martin's Jessica Hawkins feels that McLaren could have potentially challenged Red Bull if their developmental pace continued since the start of the season.

The 2023 season started out quite rough for Team Papaya as they failed to perform at a competitive level in the initial races. The Bahrain GP marked six pit stops for Lando Norris after Oscar Piastri's early retirement. This pretty much set an image of how they were at the time.

However, the development McLaren has shown recently is quite amazing as they made their way to the top three. Piastri even managed to win the Sprint at Qatar earlier against the likes of Max Verstappen and other competitive drivers.

Jessica Hawkins mentioned on the F1 Nation podcast that it is rather lucky for Red Bull, who have dominated the season so far, that it took McLaren such a long time to develop and return to competitive pace. If this pace was carried from the very start, the Milton Keynes outfit would have struggled to keep up with their domination.

"Red Bull are quite lucky that it’s taken McLaren this long," Hawkins said. "Because at the moment McLaren are doing a very, very good job."

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri together have worked well enough to bring in ample points for the team. Earlier, they were under threat from Alpine, but in the current scenario, the latter is left behind by a large margin of 129 points.

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Hawkins feels fifth place would be okay for Aston Martin amid McLaren's resurgence

Aston Martin was one of the teams who raised eyebrows when the season started. Fernando Alonso looked unstoppable as he got up on the podium regularly. It seemed as if the team would soon have their first victory in their hands, however, that gradually fell off.

While they sat second in the standings, they have dropped down to fourth place, and as McLaren is progressing, that could be in danger as well. Hawkins, however, is not really worried. She feels that the team could settle for fifth because it would still be a large improvement from where they stood in the previous season.

"We are well aware they are coming, and we can see them. We are still pushing as hard as we can for fourth, and we do have a couple of upgrades on the way," Hawkins said.

"But if fifth is what it is, we are still very aware that is still a massive step forward than what it was from last year. So morale is high, albeit fourth or fifth, but we are still very much pushing for fourth," Hawkins added.

Aston Martin suffered for the most part of the 2022 season and only finished in seventh place with 55 points, tied with Alfa Romeo. However, they currently have 230 points, showing a major boost in their performance.