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McLaren targets Red Bull by mid-season

Jonathan Neale is confident McLaren will match Red Bull soon © Getty Images

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McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale is confident Red Bull can be caught by mid-season.

Red Bull has been a dominant force this season, taking pole at every race and winning three of the six grands prix so far. McLaren has won two in mixed conditions but, by its own admission, is some way off the early-season pacesetters on a dry track.

When asked whether Red Bull is catchable, Neale told the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Phone-In: "Yes they can be and obviously ourselves, Ferrari, Mercedes and others are trying to do just that. We suspect that they are somewhere about 0.8 seconds to a second ahead on some circuits, but we know from our own experience that we closed a 2.5 seconds a lap gap between the start of the season and Hungary last year. So without crowing about it, we have demonstrated that that kind of gradient is doable.

"At the moment Red Bull have the upper hand, but I'm confident that is not going to be the case in the middle of the season. When it's this close you just can't afford to make mistakes and we have to eliminate those from our game - as does everybody else."

One of the advantages McLaren has had over its competitors is a fully working F-duct but Neale believes Red Bull, who are expected to debut a similar system this weekend, and Ferrari will quickly negate his team's advantage.

"I think they will be able to catch up, depending on how they realise it," he added. "Ferrari have already done good work in that area and I think they have already demonstrated that they have been able to get a wing to switch. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if Red Bull can get there or there about. But again, once you reveal these things at the start of the season and everybody starts to figure out not only what you're doing but how it works, then the gap gets closed very quickly. Formula One is fantastic for invention and intrigue and part of that is the interest of the sport. A bit like the Red Bull car, it has various features on it that everybody is looking at and trying to understand and now there is a mad scramble to try to recreate some of that."

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