The “three key areas” McLaren have improved to stop Red Bull in 2024

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has revealed that his team have focused on “three key areas” with their 2024 F1 challenger.

The Woking outfit enjoyed a remarkable turnaround in 2023, going from backmarker in the early part of the season to regular podium contender.

Their form propelled them up to fourth in the F1 2023 constructors’ championship ahead of Aston Martin, taking nine podiums between Austria and the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi.

McLaren excelled in high-speed corners, evidenced by the fact they were Red Bull’s nearest challengers at Silverstone and Suzuka.

However, they were exposed in low-speed corners or circuits which required less drag such as Spa, Monza and Las Vegas.

In a bid to reduce the deficit to Red Bull, which won 21 of the 22 races last year, the areas of focus have been clear for McLaren

“These areas, rather than being specific I will keep it relatively general, but they have to do with improving the aerodynamic performance, improving the mechanical side and the interaction with the tyres,” Stella told select media including Crash.net.

“In all these three key areas there are a few projects that we started and saw they had potential, but just we couldn’t finalise them in time to have them on the launch car. They will very likely become updates for the early part of the season.”

While Stella is confident McLaren have taken step forwards in the aforementioned areas, he feels there’s still “potential” for “further improvements” throughout the year with upgrades.

“In terms of improvements, we had three major objectives. One was to improve aerodynamic efficiency,” he added.

“The second one was to improve mechanical grip. And the third one was to improve interaction with the tyres.

“Now I wouldn’t want to give any proportion but I would say that we have been able to improve on all these three areas. Even though, we see that there is potential for further improvements in each of these three areas.”