McLaren say Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull only reachable by running at maximum budget cap.

McLaren

McLaren to run at budget cap level to 'fight the big ones'

Andrea Seidl says the full budget will be used in bid to return to the top of F1

Sam Hall

Saturday 4 January 2020 13:00

McLaren boss Andrea Seidl says that his team will need to run at the full $175million budget cap to catch up with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull in 2021.

For the 2021 season, Formula One have introduced a large number of new regulations. One key change has been the introduction of a strict budget cap. While the big three teams of recent years (Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull) will be able to run at this level of spending with little trouble, for midfield teams such as McLaren and Renault, this is more of a targeted level than a cap on existing spending.

However, Seidl told Motorsport.com of his ambition for McLaren, saying, "The target for us is clearly to run at the budget cap.

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"There's a clear commitment that we will run at the budget cap because obviously that's the only chance to be able again to fight the big ones; you need to be on a level playing field in terms of budget.

"You need to be realistic to what is achievable. Even if someone will give us for next year a hundred million more, you first need to be able to digest that and to put a structure in place that actually can produce more output in this short period of time.

"This is why I'm not too worried about '20, also not too worried about the quotes I'm reading at the moment that it will be the most expensive year ever for the top three teams.

"In the end, there's a limitation placed on the CFD side, on the wind tunnel side, so there's only so much you can do, and aero will also be in the future the key performance differentiator.

"They will have a head start, simply because of where they are right now, because they do a better job they have better methodologies in place, they have better processes in place and so on."

In 2019, McLaren scored 145-points - a best for the team since 2014 and more than double the total of 2018 - on the way to fourth in the constructors' standings.