It was the first race weekend for newly appointed McLaren F1 Team boss Andrea Stella in Bahrain, after he was promoted to the role due to the departure of Andreas Seidl to the Sauber Group.
It didn’t go to plan at all for the new man in charge around the Bahrain International Circuit, with Lando Norris having a pneumatic pressure leak, that affected his race due to the high amount of pit stops he made. The British driver finished last of the drivers that finished the race and would have been disappointed with the lack of reliability that cost him a potential points finish.
McLaren didn’t just have problems with Norris though, Oscar Piastri failed to finish his Formula 1 debut after an electrical issue during his first stint. The Australian driver was showing good pace in the first few laps and was climbing positions, but another reliability issue from McLaren cost them another opportunity to score points.
“It’s not the start of the season for which we were hoping,” admitted Stella.
“Points were certainly possible today, the cars had competitive pace in race stints, and Lando particularly was in a strong position. Unfortunately, we were hit by two reliability issues.
“Oscar had to retire with what appears to be an electrical problem which we are investigating. Lando, meanwhile, had a pneumatic pressure leak on the power unit side. It required him to pit every ten laps to recharge the system.
“We leave Bahrain knowing we have work to do but the season is long. We’ll regroup and will be ready to go again in Saudi Arabia.”