Stella: 'No excuse' for teams not to try and catch Red Bull

It's undoubtedly a difficult challenge, but there is no excuse for F1's leading teams to take Red Bull's supremacy laying down says McLaren team boss Andrea Stella.

After crushing its rivals last year with 17 wins out of 22 races, Red Bull has picked up this season where it left off in 2022.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit was dominant in the first two rounds held in Bahrain and in Jeddah, with Max Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez trading wins.

But beyond the team's 100 per cent win rate, the sheer performance level of Red Bull's RB19 relative to its closest adversaries has led a few pundits – and George Russell – to suggest that the bulls could win every single race this season!

And yet, Stella believes it's up to Red Bull's main rivals to get their act together and chase down the latter based on the knowledge and information they have at their disposal.

"We've had really phenomenal seasons in the previous years in terms of how close the competition for the victory was," Stella said, quoted by Motorsport.com.

"We might even have to accept that there's a season in which one team is dominant.

"But I think with all the information you have now, even with the possibility that you have to look at the car, like we have cars on display on Friday, there's no excuses for the other teams to say we don't know what to do.

"So for me, I keep saying it's more for the other teams that they need to take this opportunity to improve.

"Ultimately it's a sport which, if you are faster, you're going to win races. I don't think there's an easy solution."

• Read also: Red Bull denies it has made a "massive step" for 2023

It's often been suggested that Red Bull's cost cap penalty that will limit its aero development will weigh on the team's performance at some point this season.

But Stella isn't sure that will necessarily prove true given the current performance lead enjoyed by the RB19.

"The advantage at the moment seems large enough that they shouldn't be affected too much in terms of the gap that they show by the fact that they can’t develop as much as the teams behind them," he said.

"That's my expectation, but I would expect that other teams should take not only inspiration from a morale point of view, but a technical inspiration.

"The season is long and there is time to transform this information you get into developments, therefore I would expect towards the end of the season that the group will get even closer to Red Bull."

Stella also pointed to Aston Martin's remarkable start to its 2023 campaign as a case study on a team enjoying startingly rapid progress.

"That's indeed showing that you can make these kinds of jumps," he added. "In a way the gaps apart from Red Bull have shrunk down. So if you make a jump, you can compete for good points.

"I think Aston seem to have identified the right concepts on the car, and pursued those concepts. And again, it shows that this is possible.

"So it just reiterates the fundamental message of McLaren. We need to work hard to keep developing the car.

"As we see in development, in the background, it is positive, it is alive in development. We need to pursue this direction and capitalise soon."

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