The Red Bull Racing team continues to update the RB21 to support Max Verstappen in his Formula 1 title battle — a completely different approach from that taken by McLaren. As the championship fight tightens, McLaren’s team principal Andrea Stella has provided a clear technical explanation for the two teams’ contrasting strategies.
According to Andrea Stella, McLaren’s decision to stop introducing updates doesn’t stem from a lack of ambition, but from the maturity of their car. While the MCL39 has reached a point of strong overall performance with no major weaknesses to fix, the RB21 still presents areas that Red Bull can refine and improve.
With four races left in the season, the Drivers’ Championship remains wide open. Just 36 points separate the two McLaren drivers — championship leader Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri — from Max Verstappen. In Mexico, Norris returned to victory and reclaimed the top spot in the standings from his teammate, who continues to face some difficulties. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen’s third place for Red Bull helped close the gap even further.
One of the decisive factors in this intense title battle could be the technical direction each team has chosen. While McLaren has already confirmed that it has shifted all development efforts toward the 2026 car, Red Bull continues to upgrade the RB21. However, Andrea Stella insists that McLaren’s strategy is based on solid engineering logic and does not compromise competitiveness.
Stella: “We’ve reached the maturity of the MCL39”
Explaining the reasoning behind McLaren’s choice, Andrea Stella told reporters: “In a Formula 1 team, we work in a highly efficient way, integrating human resources with tools such as CFD and the wind tunnel so that no single element operates separately from the rest.”
“We merge all the different working methods into one cohesive process, and that’s exactly what happened in our case. Spending three more weeks developing the 2025 car wouldn’t suddenly give us a tenth per lap — we’ve simply reached a performance plateau,” Andrea Stella explained.
He went on to highlight how successful McLaren’s mid-season upgrades were, adding: “We were fortunate to be able to produce the updates we introduced mid-season. We’ve seen many cars try to develop further, only to go in the wrong direction. It’s actually much easier to develop a car when you have specific issues to solve. For example, Red Bull has at times mentioned balance difficulties with the front wing when using very high-downforce rear wings.”
“In that case, it’s simpler to find lap time because you’re solving an existing problem rather than trying to improve something that’s already performing well,” the Italian engineer concluded.
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