Ferrari and Mercedes have opted to build all new Formula One cars for 2024. Of course they will have learned from their 2023 efforts but both team bosses have stated their entries this year will feature close to a 100% new components.

McLaren and Red Bull have opted for a different strategy. They will retain the fundamental concept of their platform and build upon the successes of last season. Had McLaren not had such a disastrous start to 2023, they could easily have been runners up to Red Bull Racing. Failing to score any points in five of the first 8 rounds of the championship the former world champions were left on 17 points with over a third of the season gone.

Then came the big upgrade in Austria, which was only afforded to Lando Norris as his team mate had to wait for the next event to drive his hugely revised car.

 

 

 

 

McLaren radical turnaround in performance

The Styrian weekend was in the Sprint format and Lando qualified his McLaren in P4 for the Grand Prix and P3 for the shorter race version. McLaren timed their switch from the intermediates in the Sprint badly which forced norms outside the points at the chequered flag.

Yet come the Grand Prix McLaren hit their marks as Lando came home behind two Red Bull’s and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and instantly almost doubled the number of points the team had accumulated in the eight previous rounds.

McLaren again upgraded their car for Singapore where Norris battled it out with Carlos Sainz to take the win on a weekend where Red Bull were not at the races. As team principal Andre Stella now reveals their F1 car for 2024 is an evolution of their much improved 2023 contender.

Ferrari and Mercedes are taking a different approach in their preparations for 2024, building almost entirely new cars based on different concepts from the ones used in 2023.

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Stella claims new car performance growth is linear

The problem with car development is eventually the engineers hit a ceiling in terms of the revisions they can make to eek out ever increasing levels of performance. This is known as the law of diminishing returns, a concern for both Red Bull and McLaren whose cars are evolutions of their predecessors.

Addressing the media this week on their technical progress, Stella makes some interesting claims which can only bode well for McLaren’s hopes for challenging Red Bull Racing.

“So far, we don’t see diminishing returns,” says Stella. “This obviously will have to be proven once we put the car on the ground, but when it comes to the wind tunnel development and the CFD development, we see that the gradient we established last year that led to the Austria development and then the Singapore development. [It] seems like we can maintain it.”

The McLaren boss also reveals the team are already under way with the first of the in season upgrades which may come even before the European season begins.

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Improvement in pace will be maintained

“I would say in terms of the regulations themselves and in terms of the development we are aiming specifically at McLaren, we see the kind of linear gradient of development can be maintained,” said a confident Stella. A linear improvement in lap time would make the new McLaren quicker than the retiring Red Bull.

Mercedes tech boss, James Allison who signed today a new long term contract with the team, was ore cautious in his media update. 

“It’s impossible at this time of year to be anything other than apprehensive, coupled with excited, coupled with [being] frightened,” says Allison when asked about the mood in the team.

He did reveal the team believe they have “some hope for is that some of the more spiteful characteristics of the rear end of our car will be a bit more friendly to us, and the handling of the car a happier thing. That’s all in simulation, but nevertheless it’s got reasonable grounds to believe that we’ve made some gain there.”

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Brown cautious of Red Bull developments

Yet of course the big question is what have Red Bull been doing this winter. Their car is an evolution of the RB19 Christian Horner stated at Christmas, but McLaren’s CEO Zak Brown is wary of the world champions and isn’t ready to count his chickens despite the positive mood of his team principal.

With the all conquering RB19 now put to rest, there should be hope amongst the rest of the field that Red Bull have hit a development ceiling and are finding it more difficult to keep their project on the same gradient as McLaren.

“Clearly we want to continue to close the gap,” he told the media. “We finished up last year as the second or third quickest team, depending on what circuit you were at.

“Car development has been strong, but Red Bull certainly seems like they didn’t develop last year to the level they could if they wanted to. So that could be an unpleasant surprise for all of us.”

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Hamilton wants early starts on new F1 cars banned

Lewis Hamilton raised similar concerns last summer and having driven for an uber dominant team he knows what goes on behind the scenes.

“Red Bull hasn’t even developed their car since August; it’s definitely a concern,” remarked the former world champion during the autumn.

“When we were winning world championships, we could stop early and start developing the next year’s car, so we always had an advantage,” recalled Lewis.

“That’s why I’ve argued that we should probably find a way to stop that inertia so it doesn’t keep happening decade after decade. You have Ferrari who won for a period of time and then Mercedes. Now Red Bull has had its era. They could extend their dominance until 2026. That’s what being so far ahead is all about. Unless other teams get it right, it will stay that way. Hopefully, we’ll figure out the way forward and close that gap.”

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F1 handicap already in place

Hamilton suggested the FIA should regulate to stop teams working on their next seasons cars before a deadline sometime towards the end of the season.

Yet this suggestion makes no sense particularly when Red Bull and McLaren are evolving their 2023 contenders while Mercedes and Ferrari are starting from scratch. In fact it would punish Mercedes and Ferrari more by mandating a fixed point in time when teams can begin work on next season, given they are starting from a much lower base.

Of course Red Bull were hampered by the 12 month punishment which reduced their aero dynamic testing time by 10%. This ended during the US Grand Prix and so the team will return to its regular time allocation allowed for testing components which fit this bracket.

Formula One has always resisted the notion of handicapping its champions by forcing them to carry more weight than their rivals, but there is a system in place which sees each team awarded more aero development time based on their ranking in the constructors’ table and of course Red Bull will carry this penalty for at least another season.

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