McLaren F1 Miami Upgrades Aim to Close Red Bull Gap

McLaren F1 introduces crucial upgrades in Miami, as Andrea Stella targets better tire management to compete effectively with Red Bull.

McLaren F1 will bring upgrades to Miami, and the team’s director, Andrea Stella, explains the purpose of these new parts. He hopes for improved tire management, which would be crucial for making progress against the competition.

“For Miami, we will finally have the first set of upgrades brought to our car,” Stella confirmed in Shanghai. “These upgrades will also try to improve tire degradation, so we will try to see if we can make a step forward.”

“Given the improvements we should make to get closer to some of our competitors, I would say we need more than one set of upgrades to improve tire behavior.”

“However, in any case, it’s a constant development. One can never assume it’s enough when it comes to keeping the tires in the right operating window. The next race will certainly be interesting from a tire perspective.”

“Especially if in Miami we have high temperatures as we have had previously, then the track becomes quite limited at the rear, a lot of traction with low-speed corners and then acceleration.”

Stella stated that it was clear that Red Bull and Ferrari still had better control to degrade the rear tires less, and that front graining was less of an issue than many predicted in Shanghai.

“I think the track has been quite consistent in that the main limitation is the overload on the rear axle. It’s not a surprise because this track, in terms of asphalt, despite its surprising coating, is closer to Bahrain and Suzuka.”

“We know we degrade more at the rear, and some cars do better than us, for example, Ferrari and Red Bull. Regarding the limits of the front axle, it is interesting to note that since we introduced the wide tires, there has been much less graining in China than before 2017.”

Other things have helped McLaren perform better than expected in China.

“If we look at the sprint, we had a bit of overheating. Ferrari seemed more comfortable, Max had a huge advantage. I think there are situations where there is more degradation on our part.”

“But the Grand Prix was more under control. The rear was indeed under control due to the cold. So, it’s a small combination of factors that contributed to the performance of our car.”

“Then, what helped was the new regulation on the conditions of the parc fermé opening after the Sprint.”

“I think some adjustments we made to the settings after the sprint helped the race pace, as we changed the car with the aim of improving race pace, rather than qualifying.”

“So, we were surprised to find that, even in qualifying, we were okay. But it seems that it helped the race. So several factors helped us, not just one magic solution.”