F1 boss gives team ‘12 months’ to fix weaknesses

McLaren-teambaas Andrea Stella — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News

F1 boss gives team ‘12 months’ to fix weaknesses

An F1 team boss has estimated their team will take '12 months' to fix their 'weaknesses'.

Originally written by Sheona Mountford. This version is a translation.

Tuesday 2 April 2024 20:00

An F1 team boss has said it will take ‘12 months’ to fix his team's weaknesses on track.

After a shock DNF from Max Verstappen at the Australian Grand Prix over a week ago, Ferrari are now within reach of Red Bull in both championships.

Article continues under video

A victory from Carlos Sainz and a first McLaren podium in 2024 has given some F1 fans hope there will be a battle at the front.

However, not all teams enjoyed a successful outing, with both Mercedes cars failing to finish, Lewis Hamilton not only being off the pace in qualifying but suffering from an engine failure in the race.

Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc Australian GP 2024

McLaren boss projects long road to fix weaknesses

"Around race six or seven we should have a decent round of upgrades, and hopefully there will be potentially a couple of them throughout the season.

"It will take the whole season to actually add enough performance and say we don't see these weaknesses anymore because these areas have improved."

Whilst identifying areas for improvement, Stella also remained positive about McLaren’s package in 2024.

"Erasing the weaknesses is car development," he said. "It's not like you have these weaknesses because something goes wrong.

"There's nothing going wrong, the car is not developed enough and these aspects expose themselves, like you become weak in long corners or you don't have enough speed in DRS.

"But this is effectively a consequence of the development. If you ask me how is the car behaving, I say very well, like it goes as expected.

"It does exactly what we expect from the wind tunnel. It does what we expect from the computer development."

Red Bull Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton Ferrari McLaren Carlos Sainz