McLaren team boss Andrea Stella believes that Red Bull’s main advantage over the Woking-based outfit on race day remains its car’s performance on used tyres.
McLaren proved again last weekend in Brazil that the single lap pace of its MCL60 contender is a match for Red Bull’s RB19, a fact validated by Lando Norris’ pole position for Saturday’s Sprint event.
Unfortunately, in race trim, while Norris was able to snap at the heels of Max Verstappen in the opening stages of last Sunday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, the Briton’s threat subsided along with the grip of his tyres.
Still, McLaren was able to uphold its challenge far longer and better than its Mercedes, Aston and Ferrari rivals which were never a force to be reckoned with at Interlagos.
Stella has therefore singled out tyre degradation as Red Bull’s silver bullet relative to McLaren.
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"I think the difference is mainly in terms of lap time on used tyres," the McLaren team prinicpal explained. "We have seen that in new tyres, we can fight for position.
"But as soon as the tyres degrade, then it would appear like Max, Red Bull, they can just have less degradation. The tyres were degrading maybe one-tenth every two laps.
"It's a significant amount of degradation and if you can limit that, after 10 laps in a stint, this is tenths of a second, so I think that's where they are superior at the moment."
McLaren’s progress since its development programme kicked of last summer has been nothing short of spectacular, with each incremental upgrade delivering a benefit to its car.
But while the pace and consistency of its MCL60 have significantly improved, tyre degradation advances will only materialize in 2024.
"Where we think the difference is made, we can't do very much with this car," Stella admitted.
"The car has improved with the Singapore upgrade in terms of tyre management, but not enough to be able to compete, especially when degradation is high. And we saw some other cars degrading quite a lot, like Mercedes, Ferrari."
While Ferrari’s SF-23 has suffered this season from excessive tyre wear, the issue appeared to have been mitigated in recent races until it reared its ugly head again in Sao Paulo, where Mercedes’ drivers also struggled with tyre management.
Stella admitted to being surprised by the troubles endured by McLaren’s rivals last weekend.
"That's a bit of a surprise, because normally, when you have this high level of degradation is also when Mercedes actually seems to do well," he said.
"We are not sure why that happened. And even from a Ferrari point of view, I would have expected Ferrari to be more competitive."
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