“The approach of the MCL60 is not the right direction to ‘fight with the top 3’, according to Craig Scarborough”

During the presentation of the MCL60, Andrea Stella, the new team director, acknowledged not being entirely satisfied with the car.

The 2023 Woking race car has many similarities to Red Bull’s RB18, which won the world championship in 2022. According to Craig Scarborough, a journalist and technical analyst, copying a concept is not the right approach when aiming to become a top team again.

On the YouTube channel of F1 journalist Peter Windsor, Scarborough comments:

When I saw the MCL60 for the first time, it really looked like a Red Bull painted in orange and warmed up from last year.

« All the features are very close to those of the Red Bull, whether it be the side pods or certain characteristics of the rest of the car. If you put the two side by side, they are really, really similar. »

« Obviously, what you see on top of the car is not really where the performance lies. The performance is actually underneath the car and in the details of the suspension, so assuming they copied the upper half, they probably copied a large portion of the underside of the car as well. »

Is it good or bad for McLaren? It is very difficult to have a balanced opinion when you look at some of the other cars that have followed a similar direction. A team like Williams, for example, it’s probably a good thing that they went in that direction.

« For McLaren, if they really want to close the gap, I don’t see how copying last year’s car, even if it’s the fastest car from last year, can be the way to go. And the team doesn’t seem to think that the aerodynamics were where they wanted them to be, so it’s very difficult to see where McLaren stands at the moment. »

According to him, the team that had been moving up in the rankings since 2018 did not succeed in achieving this great feat in 2022. Disappointed with the approach taken on the MCL60, he believes that it is not ambitious enough for the team.

A mixed season for McLaren?

Despite his reservations, Scarborough believes that the first part of the season can be good. It is over the long term, with the development of the MCL60, that the team may encounter problems. For him, simply copying another car does not guarantee an understanding of the vehicle.

I think McLaren needs to do a lot of things on this car for it to be able to compete for the top 3.

« It is possible that she will finish the blocks quite quickly, but since she copied someone else’s concept, what is her level of development? »

We often observe that with teams who adopt someone else’s concept, it is delicate because you don’t learn everything yourself. You follow a concept, you make it work in the way you like, and sometimes you don’t have that underlying knowledge, which can make things difficult.

I think McLaren’s story this year will probably be a multi-part tale, from the way they emerged from the blocks and when they will get the first major developments on this car, and it will be a question of how much they can catch up with everyone else.

Alpine is going to show great strength this year, hoping that it will have the reliability it lacked last year, so McLaren has a big battle to fight both in front and behind.

For me, it’s just a strange direction they have taken this year.