McLaren’s Andrea Stella: “The team have reset and are ready to go again in Imola”

The McLaren F1 Team head to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix this weekend looking to rebound from their worst performance of the season last time out in Miami where Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri could only finish seventeenth and nineteenth respectively.

The Azerbaijan-Miami Grand Prix double header saw two very different results for McLaren, with both drivers scoring good results at the Baku City Circuit before being nowhere near them in the United States.

The Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari has been good to McLaren in recent years, with Norris scoring top three finishes in the past two seasons, but Andrea Stella, the Team Principal of the Woking-based squad, knows a repeat in 2023 will be extremely difficult to achieve.

Stella says that after the horror result in Miami, it is important for the team to rebound and contend once more for points, particularly if they want to fulfil their ambition to return to the very front of the field.

“After a positive race in Baku, we had a difficult event in Miami in which we scored no points,” Stella said.  “The team have reset and are ready to go again in Imola to kickstart the triple header ahead of us.

“The activity at the factory keeps being fervent as we work to prepare for the next round of upgrades that will be introduced in a few races, which will make the car more competitive.

“In the coming races, our focus is to get back fighting for points. Imola is an interesting track for the drivers, with a fast pace and a variety of corners. We’ve had good results here in the past, so we aim to use that positivity whilst remaining focused on the challenges ahead in the short and long term.”