Zak Brown claims the 2024 F1 season will totally depend on ‘how much Adrian Newey magic comes out of the oven’
The American has given his predictions for the 2024 season and believes it would be dependent on Red Bull's progress
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Zak Brown and and Adrian Newey (via PlanetF1)
McLaren F1’s CEO Zak Brown has given his predictions for the upcoming 2024 F1 season, and how it would play out. Last year McLaren had a tough start to the season and worked hard to get back to the top again. However, Brown believes the progress this year is dependent on how Red Bull’s key designer Adrian Newey has been working in the winter break on the RB20.
While looking ahead to the season to come, Brown thinks that who would win the championship next year truly depends on how the other teams have developed around the winter break, especially Red Bull. The American is usually seen filled with optimism for his team but also has a sense of fear that Red Bull’s progress might be too much for anyone to catch up with.
The great mystery is Red Bull, and when did they turn off development [of last year's car] to focus on this year? I think the answer is probably pretty early, so we'll just have to wait and see how much Adrian Newey magic comes out of the oven, so to speak, to see where we are.Zak Brown while looking ahead to the 2024 season, via Speedcafe.
The dominance of RB19 was quite visible as it won 21 out of the 22 Grand Prix held in the entire season, but Brown believes that the competitiveness of the entire grid had increased last year due to the introduction of the cost cap. Last year, a 4-way battle was seen between the teams for the second-best spot, and by the end of the year, McLaren had surged its way back to the front of the field.
How did McLaren save the 2023 season from being a ‘write-off’?
McLaren’s resurgence in the latter half of the 2023 season was appreciated by multiple motorsport fans as everyone wanted to see McLaren fighting for the top again. However, this was not how the season had originally started in Bahrain.
In the opening race, McLaren had a DNF for Oscar Piastri with a mechanical issue while Lando Norris was forced on a five-stopper due to a pneumatic pressure leak in his car and made the Grand Prix a misery for the whole team. Later down the line, after the Austrian Grand Prix, a change of fortune for the team in papaya was noticed as it was able to fight for the points on raw pace.
Since the introduction of the new spec parts on both the cars, 7 podium finishes for the driver pair were recorded and a single sprint win in Qatar was taken by Piastri. McLaren saved the season by introducing key changes to the car mid-season and would like to continue this momentum into the next season.
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Riddhi Mondal
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