McLaren boss, Andrea Stella claims that the Woking team's remarkable turnaround last season is making it look as though it is losing ground to Red Bull this year.

After just five races, McLaren is in the no-mans land between Ferrari, as it seeks to match the Bulls, and Mercedes as it attempts to shake off Aston Martin, whereas many expected the Woking team to be the one most likely to take the fight to the reigning world champions.

"Red Bull did not develop very much last year," says Stella. "Clearly, they were working quite a lot on the ground because they innovated the car dramatically. And, to innovate the car like they did, takes months of redesign.

"So, I think they were doing all this work and then when they came with the new car it was a big step.

"So even if apparently we kind of have lost some ground, I think we lost some ground because we gained so much ground before, while they were not developing," he explains.

"That's why, I think we need to look at things over the long period. Over the long period we are in a strong trajectory. For me this is also what we say internally. If we keep this trajectory of development for the next twelve months then why not? We may reach Red Bull.

"We're going to have some upgrades in Miami," he confirms. "So let's see how they perform. Then it's like for everyone.

"There's a lot of people at the factory that are all focused on generating developments, it's always a battle of development. We have seen already cars like Stake had upgrades. Haas have been upgraded and now they are consistently Q3 cars.

"That's the real job in Formula 1," he insists. "Just constantly improve cars. And that's what we have to do."

Mercedes and Ferrari have both confirmed upgrade packages for Miami, even if the Italian team appears more focussed on its revised paint job.