Stella: I'm surprised that we've been so competitive

McLaren brought a major upgrade to their MCL38 for the grand prix in Miami, and Lando Norris maximized it to take his maiden Formula 1 victory.

Since then, McLaren have been on a roll, in contention every weekend, their form suggesting they should've won more which wasn't possible due to some mishaps in race execution.

It is currently very close at the top between McLaren, Mercedes, and Red Bull, but the latter have an disadvantage in the ATR time given they won the F1 Constructors' Championship in 2023.

ATR is a limit to how many wind tunnel runs and how much CFD work each team can conduct, which is reduced when the team finishes higher in the Constructors' Championship.

Speaking to the media, including GrandPrix247, after the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix, and as F1 enters the summer break, Stella was asked how McLaren will use their ATR advantage for the remainder of the season.

He said: "In terms of the ATR, I'm not sure. Effectively, Red Bull have taken trackside more developments so far, in terms of physical parts delivered, when you look at the submission, than what we have done.

"But definitely, I can talk for McLaren. We seem to be now in condition to cash in some of this development that we have accrued in the ground, and I would expect that for the second part of the season, we will have at multiple times, some new parts.

"In a way, I'm surprised that we've been so competitive, considering that from Miami onwards, we haven't actually brought trackside many new parts," he pointed out. So it means that obviously the Miami upgrade was big. There's some upgrades that will come in the second part of the season, yes."

One thing McLaren might use their ATR for would be solving the problem of lack of efficiency of their car on low downforce tracks, a main weaknesses for them in 2023.

Quizzed how close McLaren are in solving this problem, Stella responded: "We have gone 50% of the journey. I'm more confident that at high downforce, we have the car in a good place, like the car does what we want in terms especially of aerodynamic behavior.

But we haven't yet done a lot of development at lower drag level. So to me it's not a surprise that here in Belgium, we were not as competitive as Hungary and it's not a surprise that for the same, or a little bit better top speed, still we were losing quite a bit in the second sector.

"It means that if we want to gain speed, we will give up quite a lot of grip. But I hope that in future, possibly next year in Belgium we have completed this quest to have the most efficient car, even when top speed is important," the Italian concluded.

McLaren enter the F1 summer break second in the F1 Constructors' Championship, 42 points behind Red Bull Racing.