McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has revealed the team was “nervous” early in the year over the potential of its car.
After winning the 2024 constructors' championship, McLaren entered the current campaign as favourites for both titles.
14 rounds into the season, the Woking-based squad holds a significant advantage in both championship standings and is on course for its first double-title success since 1998.
Stella admitted he has been taken aback by how fast the MCL39 has proven to be relative to the competition.
“Yes, I've been surprised by this level of competitiveness,” Stella told media including RacingNews365.
“When last year we discussed how much effort we wanted to put in improving the 2024 car, we definitely wanted to be very ambitious.
“We wanted to try and clear the 'going into race weekends and you never know who's going to win' situation we had last year, and we thought we needed to do a little bit more than the normal development.
“So how do we do that? We embraced a very aggressive approach to innovation.
“The MCL39 is a very innovative car. From an engineering point of view, we've been nervous as to whether some solutions, whether we were actually in the condition to deliver them.”
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McLaren has won the last four races, the first time it has enjoyed such a streak in 20 years.
Stella highlighted the car has become more competitive as the season has progressed, as the team has opted to continue development despite a major rule change coming for 2026.
“When we looked at the lap times and the numbers in simulations, actually, we thought that wouldn't be enough [to be favourites at every race weekend].
“At the start of the season, effectively, it wasn’t enough. So, there's a factor that has happened during this season, which is the car has actually been upgraded.
“I think it was more noticeable in the past because we were coming with one-off upgrades, and they were in themselves very noticeable.
“But actually, even if we consider the last three, four races, there's been quite a lot of new parts that have been added. If we add all these in a single incidence, then we would say, 'Oh, McLaren has a big upgrade'.
“I think this has helped a lot in creating this trend and finding that in the last three races, we were definitely very competitive.”
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