The Woking-based team has emerged as Red Bull’s most consistent challenger in recent races, with the squad having finished on the podium five times in the last six races.
Having made impressive progress this year, it is aware that it still has more work to do before it can think about challenging the dominant Red Bull squad in pure pace terms.
Speaking at the Brazilian Grand Prix, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella reckoned that the only thing now separating the two teams was tyre management – with Red Bull still having the edge in dealing with degradation.
As the team pushes on with its 2024 design, Stella said the progress it needed to make to close down the deficit will go beyond just downforce.
“We have set some targets, let's say, but I can't say in which area and how,” he said. “But what I can say is that it's not only aero.”
Asked by Autosport how much of the tyre degradation issue was down to aerodynamics, and how much mechanical, Stella said: “It's a combination of both. I can't say much more than that.”
McLaren knows that rivals like Mercedes and Ferrari, which have underperformed this year, are set to embark on radical revamps for their 2024 challengers – which means that the fight at the front of F1 could be very different next year.
Source: Autosport