McLaren apply extra pressure to Red Bull in upgrade pledge

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has confirmed his squad will continue to upgrade its car in the coming races.

Just seven grands prix remain in the 2024 F1 world championship, with the Azerbaijan outing last weekend signalling a significant moment in the title fight as McLaren took over the lead of the constructors’ championship.

The Woking-based squad is closing in on its first title in 16 years as it also continues its pursuit of winning the drivers’ championship with Lando Norris.

Norris currently sits 59 points down on Verstappen, with Red Bull struggling for form across the last handful of events.

As it looks to consolidate its position at the head of the pecking order, Stella confirmed it is not slowing down its development push for the rest of the year.

“We are definitely working on upgrades for this season,” Stella told media including RacingNews365. “We are now finalising this.

“I don’t want to disclose too much in terms of what and when, but we do have a plan to make the car faster.”

Stella understands added speed is no guarantee

However, Stella urged caution over the prospect of adding speed despite the introduction of new parts.

Various teams have run into obstacles when fitting upgrades this year as it becomes harder to extract added performance from the current set of technical regulations.

“Whether we will be able to do it or not, we will see, because I think we have seen that at this level of development, it’s not an easy task to actually change the specification of the car and get it to work as you expect in your development tools,” he said.

“But that’s also why we took a bit more time to try and make sure that what we bring to trackside is successful.

“So, yes, I can confirm that we have some stuff coming for the next races, and I will leave the surprise in the [upgrade] document when they are published.”