McLaren has high expectations riding on them going into the 2024 F1 season.

The McLaren F1 team did not show their hand completely during the recently concluded 2024 testing event.

While the team was running various kinds of programs during the three days, several people noticed quite a few similarities between the MCL38 and the Red Bulls’ RB20.

Since then, various kinds of reports have been coming out of the rumor mill, suggesting striking similarities between Mclaren and Red Bull’s car.

However, while the rumor mill is going wild, Andrea Stella has made it known that their 2024 challenger is completely different in comparison to Red Bull.

While shedding light on the same, Stella said, as reported by racingnews365:

It is completely different, Let’s say there are some areas of the car in the launch specification that have significantly evolved compared to last year – some of them very noticeable. There are some other areas that are only incrementally improved, but we see in development, there is actually quite a lot of potential that we didn’t exploit in time to put on the launch car.
Looking at the strong reaction of Stella, it is quite evident that the Woking-based team firmly believes this car is very different from the mighty RB20. Moreover, it has also been indicated that McLaren has put immense effort into the development of the 2024 car.

McLaren will aspire to win several races in 2024
While McLaren has admitted that their 2024 car is completely different, their goal for this year has to be to challenge Red Bull as much as possible, and squeeze in a few Grand Prix wins. On the back of Lando Norris and Oscar piastri, the team was able to make a tremendous recovery last year to finish their season in a commendable fourth place.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri (Via: Imago)
However, keeping in view the mighty glimpses Red Bull showed with its 2024 car during testing, there is a prevailing belief in the F1 paddock that the Austrian outfit will once again dominate. Max Verstappen and Co. won an incredible 21 out of the possible 22 races last year and the same could happen during the 2024 F1 season.

The Bahrain Grand Prix is just two days away and all the team are putting in the work to be as ready as possible ahead of the event. McLaren has high expectations going into the season, and considering this, it will be fascinating to see how they will perform.