Stella says there were reasons why McLaren lost its winning form in Austin
McLaren Formula 1 boss Andrea Stella says it was “no surprise” that McLaren struggled in Austin and was outperformed by Ferrari and Red Bull.
Stella stressed that Ferrari has been consistently competitive recently, while not always optimising that performance.
In addition he said that the nature of the COTA layout played to the strengths of the rival cars, and didn’t help McLaren.
“I think in terms of competitiveness, there’s some multiple factors to consider,” said Stella. “When it comes to Ferrari, they have been quick over the previous races pretty consistently. If anything, they’ve not been capable of maximising their potential.
“I think in Baku Leclerc, in fairness, was definitely in condition to win the race. In Singapore we were expecting Leclerc to be very competitive for pole position, and therefore then it would have been the same in the race. So we are not surprised that Ferrari is so close.
“And then when we look at the characteristics of this circuit, in particular because of the braking into very low-speed, and some very high-speed sections, we know that in these two situations, our car is not at the best of its performance.
“And for instance, the very low-speed and the very high-speed is also where Red Bull are very good.
“So if we consider that Ferrari, they were already competitive, if we consider the track layout, and if we consider that Red Bull had three weeks to look at data and think what is going on with their car – and we talk about Red Bull, a very competent group of engineers – then I’m not surprised that in Austin we kind of struggled.”
Stella is more optimistic about the team’s prospects in Mexico City this weekend.
“I think the next circuit should be a little bit more suitable to the characteristics of our car. We also have to keep developing the car, like here.
“We took some developments at the front of the car, but they were nothing too large in terms of potential lap time impact. We have a couple more things that are coming in the next two races. We will see if we are in condition to alter the competitiveness of the car.”
Stella reiterated that the upgrades that didn’t make it to Austin should be proven when they do arrive on track, which has been a theme all year for the team.
“If we were in condition to release them and produce them in time to have them in Austin, we would have brought them to Austin,” he said. “I think the time of new parts and upgrades landing trackside is the natural time of designing, finalising and then producing the new parts.
“I’ve said before that we wanted to make sure that what we bring trackside is well-behaved. And we are quite encouraged.
“And I have to say, well done once again to our aerodynamic team that the parts we took [to Austin], they worked as expected, and hopefully this will be the case also for the parts coming for Mexico and Brazil.”
Adam Cooper F1 