McLaren shifts focus to 2024: 'Hope to be on the podium once more'
General
- Cas van de Kleut
McLaren has made huge strides in the 2023 season. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri suddenly have a car they can get close to or even on the podium with. Team boss of the Woking-based team, Andrea Stella, says the focus does shift to 2024 from now on.
It was quite a scare for McLaren fans when they saw during the season opener in Bahrain that the MCL60 could not keep up with the rest of the field at all. The race ended with a DNF for Piastri, and Norris got no further than 17th place.
After that, McLaren made some small steps forward, but the biggest jump came at Silverstone. The British stable's drivers suddenly finished second and third in qualifying, and the MCL60 proved to be fast in the race too, resulting in a second place for Norris. In the weekend that followed, Norris grabbed second place again, and in Belgium, Piastri finished second in the sprint race.
McLaren focus to 2024
In 2024, the team wants to continue this trend. "So the focus itself on development is stopped, we are now working on next year's car, I think this is pretty much what has happened in every team. This doesn't mean that we won't have any new part, because, actually, there's a time lag between the development of the factory and the delivery of parts track side, so we will see some new parts coming in the next couple of races, and we hope that by improving our performance, we will be able to consolidate the good results we have had lately, and possibly lean on the podiums once more before the end of the season," Stella explained.