McLaren is favored for the 2025 F1 season. This is evident from the three days of testing spent in Bahrain, Sakhir, by the current world champion team. However, not everyone agrees. We’re talking about the team principal, the former Ferrari engineer Mr. Andrea Stella. The engineer from Orvieto also mentions the particular weather conditions. He lets us know that the conditions during the first four sessions were good because the grip was high, and the possibility of completing multiple stints with a full tank allowed the team to collect valuable data for understanding the car.
F1, McLaren: Andrea Stella cautious and a bit clever?
The former track engineer for Fernando Alonso, when the Spaniard was with Ferrari, reminds us of what happened in previous years. He recalls that, although they won the constructors’ title in 2024, they were not considered among the top teams in pre-season testing. Then, unlike Fred Vasseur, who prefers to avoid investigations into Ferrari, he explains a bit about what has happened recently. He does so by sharing an interesting point: the philosophy behind the British cars has not changed much, maintaining the same personality.
The area McLaren has worked on a lot concerns the forces acting on the F1 car. For this reason, in terms of aerodynamic efficiency, the MCL39 has made further progress and, in fact, has already shown superior speed since the last campaign. Stella is not interested in tuning into “paddock radio” and comments in a problematic way about the grip and balance issues suffered yesterday. Therefore, the power dynamics are not to be judged. This is a bit of tactical play, similar to Vasseur’s approach, as it seems he’s really doing that.
To support his thesis, he mentions Las Vegas, where, according to him, they didn’t have any real performance. Even in the final race of the season, Abu Dhabi, he makes us reflect on the small difference between the papaya-colored cars and the two Ferrari SF-24s. The title came thanks to the consistency with which they collected points, combined with great flexibility that allowed the historic British team to perform very well on the different layouts that make up the F1 calendar. He expects a very close battle with other rivals in Melbourne. That’s his view.
F1, McLaren favored for Melbourne
McLaren, talking about their on-track work, carried out correlation tests between CFD and the wind tunnel. From a handling perspective, they completed several runs with the C3 tire to deeply understand how this compound behaves. Much of the work on defining the operating window was done with this tire. The F1 car showed a very solid front end. In turn 1, they had some adjustment issues and difficulty hitting the apex, which caused them to lose some time in the acceleration section towards turn 4.
This latter section was always well managed from entry to exit, with minimal oversteer in the second half of the corner. Continuing through the snake, McLaren confirmed their massive strength in high-speed corners. In direction changes, along with Red Bull, they have the car that least requires throttle modulation, once again showing excellent downforce and, above all, great stability. In terms of efficiency, it is still difficult to judge because, during the tests, they were still playing with map settings that are not very representative of reality.
Andrea Stella spoke about this, stating that the main focus was on reducing aerodynamic drag. On the traction side, it seems they’ve lost the advantage over Ferrari, which, more or less, is managing to extract more performance in this area. In the final sector, McLaren showed significant strength, although they used more conservative lines in certain competitive scenarios since the car couldn’t develop the necessary grip. The English car is very pointy, and this is why sometimes the rear end felt a bit light.
There’s an interesting fact to consider. On the second day of F1 testing, the two drivers recorded very fast laps intentionally interrupted in T3, with the clear goal of not providing too clear data to their direct competitors. Otherwise, while there’s still work to be done to improve rear grip, the team is also working on other areas. For example, achieving even more front-end grip. McLaren knows it has improved handling with the work done and is set to demonstrate it in two weeks in Australia. The goal? To fight for victory and immediately establish the hierarchy…
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