After McLaren’s big gains last year, CEO Zak Brown says the team simply needs to “keep going forward” in 2020.
The Woking-based outfit proved too quick and too consistent for their midfield rivals as they finished fourth in the Constructors’ standings, 54 points ahead of fifth-placed Renault.
But with little expectation of closing the gap to any of the top three teams, Brown admits consolidation is the main goal.
“We need to keep going forward,” he said at the Autosport International show last weekend.
“We had a huge step, obviously, from 2018 to 2019. Part of that was because we were so poor in 2018, so it was hard not to take a big step in 2019.
“But I don’t see that same step coming from 2019 to 2020.”
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As for their competition, the American added: “The regulations are very, very similar, so I don’t think the grid’s going to look a lot different. There’ll probably be a little bit of surprise here and there.
“Hopefully Williams gets a little bit stronger, that’s not good to see them have the year that they had. So hopefully they’ll pick up the pace a bit.
“For us, we’re still a young team. [Technical director] James Key didn’t develop last year’s car, this year’s [he] did, so let’s see what that looks like. [F1 team principal] Andreas Seidl only joined in the middle of the year.
“Really, what we need to do is just get tidier, more race fit, get a good head-start, the 2021 car’s already in the windtunnel and we feel pretty good about the 2020 car,” he added.
“We just need to kind of keep our head down and know that it’s not going to happen overnight.
“We’re going to have some great weekends and we’re going to have some bad weekends, But let’s just hope that we keep moving forward.”