McLaren confident of closing Mercedes gap - Seidl

McLaren is confident the gap to Mercedes can be closed although team principal Andreas Seidl has warned the turnaround will not be instantaneous.

McLaren continued its resurgence by finishing third in the constructors' championship last season, which included two podiums, after enduring a troubled run at the start of the turbo-hybrid era.

With the end goal to reach the top of the standings again, Seidl revealed McLaren has a plan aimed at reaching the performance level of its new power-unit suppliers.

“I think we need to stay realistic despite the great outcome in the championship last year in delivering P3," said Seidl.

“I think we know exactly where we are. There is still a huge gap to the cars in front, especially to the Mercedes car. “That is not something we will close from one year to the next. We still know we have a lot of deficit within the team in terms of the organisation, in terms of infrastructure, which we need to close first.

"But again, we have a clear plan of how we want to reduce this deficit. It will take time but I am confident that, if we do the right things on the team side, that we can close this gap in some years.”

McLaren was one of a handful of teams that continuously improved its 2020 car throughout the pandemic-hit season ahead of what it knew to be an intriguing year development-wise given the new regulations that come into force next term.

Seidl has praised his team for the work involved in getting the car prepared throughout last season ahead of what is expected to be a somewhat stagnant year in terms of car development.

“I think the most important thing is, first of all, to say that the team, under the leadership of James Key [technical director], produced a very competitive car," said Seidl with a smile. "It was a great step forward compared to 2019.

"It was great to also see that, despite all of the challenges from the pandemic, the team kept pushing flat-out back home in engineering and production to continuously bring upgrades to the track which, in the end, kept improving the performance of the car."

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