After the four-week April break, the Formula 1 teams showed up at the race weekend in Miami with numerous upgrades to their cars. An innovation from Red Bull Racing is taking a close look at McLaren, among others.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella admitted that his crew in Miami was particularly interested in Red Bull Racing. The main reason was an upgrade that Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar had on their cars.
“For those who are technically interested, we are currently in a very, very interesting phase,” said Stella in a media round in Miami with a view to the new parts that the teams presented at the USA race for the first time after the week-long break.
“For example, if you look at the sidepod concept that Red Bull showed, it is quite different from the sidepot concepts that Mercedes and Ferrari have adapted. And the McLaren style is different again,” said the person responsible, who is firmly convinced that all teams will “steal” things from the competition in the coming weeks and copy them to test them on their own cars – a standard procedure in Formula 1.
Stella: Everyone will be looking at Red Bull
At a certain point, Stella explained, everything on the grid will stabilize and the cars will align: “But we’re still pretty far away from that. I think there will be this process where we all look at each other and test things. And everyone will definitely look at the Red Bull concept and see where the advantages are.”
The coming weeks will show how good Red Bull’s new sidepot concept really is, what it brings and whether it can be “easily” adapted by other teams. The fact is: In Miami, the Verstappen team was significantly closer to the front than in the first races of the season. A clear sign that Red Bull has at least not developed in the wrong direction.