A fascinating midfield battle is shaping up between McLaren and Aston Martin for the 2021 season.

For his part, McLaren supremo Zak Brown is playing down the Woking based team's chances of taking on Aston Martin - who will have quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel at the wheel.

"Given the car they have - the fastest next to Mercedes - they will be hard to beat," he said.

And team boss Andreas Seidl says McLaren has a lot of work to do "on the infrastructure side".

"Some of our infrastructure was completely out of date and our new wind tunnel, for example, won't be ready for two years," he told Auto Motor und Sport.

But Aston Martin - formerly Racing Point - is also in the process of ramping up after the Lawrence Stroll takeover.

"I have great confidence in both of those teams," former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher told f1-insider.com.

"McLaren has taken the right step with the Mercedes engine, and Aston Martin has taken the right step to get Sebastian Vettel, who now has to prove that he was sold below his value at Ferrari in recent years."

Former F1 team boss Eddie Jordan added: "Vettel has to perform this year and beat (Lance) Stroll. Lance can be very fast, but so far he has lacked consistency.

"I see McLaren in better shape with the drivers," he said. "Ricciardo is one of the best and Norris is a super talent."