Stella has big plans for McLaren: 'We can reach Red Bull within 12 months'

It has not been a bad season for McLaren so far. One example is Lando Norris' second-place finish in China. In the closing stages of the Grand Prix, he managed to keep Sergio Perez at a distance great enough to claim the second-highest spot on the podium without too much trouble.

McLaren has one goal: beat Verstappen

Yet the team is aiming for more. When asked if Stella had ever thought about a situation where Verstappen and Red Bull were not there, he replied, "I've never thought about it. My focus is not on if Max would not be there. My focus is on how we can close the gap to Max. My focus is how do we close the gap to Max. I have a lot of admiration for what Red Bull are achieving, and I think, like, winning so consistently is not easy. There's so many reasons why things can go wrong, even if they make it look simple to some extent.'

The McLaren team boss continued: "Hats off to Red Bull who are achieving technically, operationally, sporting wise. Because even if it looks like almost ordinary. It's not. So we take it as an extra motivation. We take it as, to some extent, we do look at how they do things, but my thoughts are, how do we get there?"

Stella sees potential to reach Red Bull

Last year, McLaren had a poor start to the season, but a few upgrades allowed the British team to compete for podium positions at once. Many fans therefore hoped that the upward trend could continue towards the current season, but Red Bull and Ferrari are currently in a better position.

According to Stella, McLaren has therefore lost a little ground on Red Bull over the winter. That would also be because the British team made such a big move last season. Still, the team boss thinks McLaren can soon match Red Bull: "If we keep this trajectory of development for the next twelve months, then why not? We may reach Red Bull. We're gonna have some upgrades in Miami. Let's see how they perform."

"There are a lot of people at the factory who are all focused on generating developments, and it's always a battle of development. We have seen already cars like Stake had updates, Haas, have been upgraded, and now they are consistently Q3 cars. That's the real job in Formula one, just constantly improve cars, and that's what we have to do."