McLaren designing Red Bull-esque car for 2019

McLaren are working on developing a car on the design specifics of Red Bull in a bid to get rid of their pace woes for the next season, states a report in Spanish outlet, AS. Their interest comes from the link to Carlos Sainz Jr., who joined them for next year.

“According to several sources, engineers and designers (at McLaren) are adopting various aerodynamic concepts that Red Bull used this season,” the report claims. The Woking-based outfit failed to deliver despite a new engine partnership with Renault this season.

However, McLaren sporting boss, Gil de Ferran, was not so forthcoming about confirming the reports. “I have many numbers, but none that I can share for now,” he was quoted as saying.

“I think the change in regulations for next year is possibly favourable for us, but we are competing against very good teams. I have a lot of respect for our rivals, so we will have to wait and see how we go in Barcelona at the beginning of next year.”

McLaren seemed to have recovered from a massive slump in the early part of this year, when the retiring Fernando Alonso had some good races, even finishing in the points multiple times.

However, it proved to be a false alarm. The Monaco race unravelled a can of worms which was pre-existent, when Alonso retired when his gearbox failed. He then retired from his 300th race start at Canada, this time with an engine issue.

Post that, it had all gone completely downhill as the Renault partnership failed to yield results, with McLaren reverting to their old position of being among the slowest cars on the circuit and finding themselves in the bottom half of the grid.

McLaren boss, Zak Brown, had explained that a wind tunnel problem had prevented further development on the car as the issue was seemingly unidentifiable, which even affected their car development for next year.

However, they now seem to have found a solution to it by basing their design on Red Bull’s cars.