Sunday Struggles in Spain a ‘More Realistic Showing’ of McLaren’s Pace – Andrea Stella

Andrea Stella says Sunday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was a ‘more realistic showing’ for the McLaren F1 Team than Saturday had been as they left the Spanish Grand Prix without scoring points.

Lando Norris had started third and Oscar Piastri ninth, but first lap contact with Lewis Hamilton ruined the day for the former, while the latter struggled for pace throughout the day.  Piastri ended the best of the duo in thirteenth, while the delayed Norris ended seventeenth.

Stella, the Team Principal of McLaren, was still able to praise the team for their efforts throughout the race as they did not stop pushing until the end of the day even if points were never likely.

“Following a very positive qualifying session, today’s Spanish Grand Prix was a more realistic showing of our current competitiveness,” said Stella. “We knew it would be more difficult to perform at the top of the field on race pace today given the hotter conditions.

“The situation was compounded by contact on the first lap between Lando and Lewis Hamilton, which resulted in Lando pitting for a new front wing and falling thirty seconds behind the field.  

“I would like to praise the team today. Despite a difficult position, both Lando and Oscar both kept pushing, their engineering teams put in maximum effort to extract everything from the cars, and the garage crew delivered good pit-stops.”

Stella says everyone back at McLaren’s Woking factory are still working hard to bring updates to the MCL60, and he hopes that when they are introduced, they can be fighting for positions well inside the top ten.

“Back at the factory, everyone is working hard to deliver upgrades and looking to the future when we hope to be fighting for more competitive positions,” Stella added.