Stella expects better performance from McLaren in Qatar
On the back of a very difficult race for McLaren, team principal Andrea Stella claims that while he is disappointed with the result, he hopes that the Woking-based outfit will return to winning ways at this weekend's Qatar Grand Prix.
McLaren endured a difficult weekend at Las Vegas. The team that has been regarded the quickest over the past months, looked in the mix in qualifying initially, but Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri failed to improve their lap times from Q1 in the same way as their rivals were able to in the following qualifying sections.
As a result, Norris, who had been the only driver with a mathematical chance to beat Max Verstappen for the drivers' title in 2024, ended up only sixth quickest, but the more disappointing blow was for him that he finished behind his Dutch rival.
In the race, Norris had to out-score Verstappen by at least three points on in order to keep alive his dwindling title hopes. However, the British driver struggled for pace in the race and finished down in P5 while his championship rival was able to take fifth, with both replicating their respective starting positions.
His team-mate Oscar Piastri started from P8 on the grid, but was handed out a five-second time penalty for failing to take his grid box correctly. The Australian managed to gain a few places after his second pit stop, but his seventh-place finish was still a disappointing result.
After his driver Lando Norris lost any chance of fighting for the drivers' title with Max Verstappen, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has praised the Dutch driver for taking his fourth F1 world title.
“Before anything else, I’d like to express personally, and on behalf of our team, congratulations to Max Verstappen. Four-time World Champion, one of the greatest in the history of the sport.
"He thoroughly deserves this title, he was incredibly consistent, even when his car wasn’t the best. Max and Red Bull Racing overall as a team supporting him have done a superb job. Well done to them.
Explaining McLaren's own struggles during the 50-lap Nevadan race, Stella said that the MCL38 has simply lacked pace, and prompted his team to investigate the reasons for the issues from the weekend.
“For our part, we can be proud that we’ve given Max something to think about and taken the title race this deep into the season. I think we lost too many points at the start of the year, when we were not competitive enough. Once the car improved, I think we’ve proven we have the qualities as a team, and the qualities in Lando and Oscar, to contend for both titles.
“Tonight, we can’t be happy with the result, because we go racing to finish on the podium, and we go racing to win. We had some headaches with car and tyre performance, and we’ll be doing a lot of analysis between here and Lusail."
The Italian pins hopes on the final two tracks of the calendar, claiming that Qatar and Abu Dhabi should play into the strengths of the McLaren's MCL38.
"Considering the weekend we’ve had, I think we were able to limit the damage this evening. Qatar and Abu Dhabi should be more suitable ground for the MCL38 – but there are four teams in contention for victory all of the time. That’s great for Formula 1, but it means we have to be performing at our absolute best if we are to win the Constructors’ Championship.
"Not very long ago, the notion that we would be in contention for the title would have been incredible, unthinkable – but now it’s realistic and we have to finish the job," concluded Stella.
