McLaren’s Andrea Stella: “We remain focused and realistic, with our feet on the ground”

Andrea Stella insists the McLaren F1 Team will keep their feet on the ground despite Lando Norris’ excellent fourth place finish last weekend in Austria, the first event where the British racer ran with an upgraded MCL60 car.

McLaren had started the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season in mediocre fashion, and Technical Director James Key was released from his position within the team earlier in the year.

However, the updates to the car in Austria last weekend saw Norris challenge all day long within the top five, and the same updates will be made available this weekend at Silverstone for his team-mate Oscar Piastri.

Stella, the Team Principal at McLaren who is overseeing a big overhaul of the design team this year, hopes the form they showed in Austria can continue into the teams’ home race, but everyone within the team is remaining calm about their potential.

“The whole team is looking forward to McLaren’s home race and to get out on track in front of our home fans and many of our people,” said Stella.  “For many it is the only time they will have the opportunity to see our cars live on track.

“We come back from Austria with 12 points for the team, a very good result for us. It was good to see the upgrades performing well on Lando’s car. We’ll have the same upgrades fitted to Oscar’s car.

“We remain focused and realistic, with our feet on the ground, regardless of the encouraging and positive result in Austria. The most important thing is to continue to move forward and evolve, however little, every day.

“Silverstone is a very different track from Austria, but we obviously hope to achieve another good result at a circuit that has brought so much joy to all F1 fans and competitors.”