Stella says McLaren had podium pace despite fifth- and seventh-place finishes

McLaren had the pace to target a podium at the United States Grand Prix, according to its team principal, despite what he called disappointing fifth- and seventh-place finishes. Andrea Stella said the MCL40 showed in the race that it could contend, but that its position on the grid made the ambition almost impossible. In Formula 1, race pace is not enough if qualifying laps do not deliver a good starting position: in traffic, tyres wear while the leaders pull away. That was the difficulty McLaren faced at the event.

Lando Norris finished fifth and Oscar Piastri seventh, despite upgrades to the car at the Circuit of the Americas. Stella summed up the weekend as “a decent Sunday following a disappointing Saturday”, adding that the race had confirmed the MCL40’s potential. However, he acknowledged that the starting position made a podium “virtually unattainable”.

McLaren’s team principal also described the team’s frustration after qualifying. “There is a shared sense of frustration across the whole team at not having fully exploited our potential during qualifying, but it is up to us to try and do better,” he said. He nevertheless praised the collective work, strategic decisions and positive contribution of the upgrades. Norris, he said, showed strong pace, while Piastri drove a solid race, holding off Russell’s Mercedes for around thirty laps.

Managing the situation between the two drivers also mattered. After Norris complained over the radio that his team-mate was holding him up, McLaren asked Piastri to let him through; the Australian did so at Turn 1 on lap eight. Stella said the team had seen during the weekend that Norris had a slight speed advantage. He also noted that the circuit particularly suited Norris, while Piastri found it more difficult: the changing laps challenged the Australian’s ability to build references, whereas Norris adapted better to the conditions.

The instruction had been discussed before the race: if Norris was behind Piastri and Piastri could not keep up with the cars ahead, the team would give Norris an opportunity to attack. Stella described the decision as a way to put the team’s interests first. After Singapore, he said, McLaren had reaffirmed its aim of having Piastri and Norris fight for wins before managing their internal competition.

On strategy, Stella said McLaren had chosen hard tyres, which had appeared competitive in practice, while other teams were leaning towards softer compounds. The first stint encouraged the team to believe that choice could help it make up ground. McLaren eventually committed to a one-stop strategy, which could also have benefited from a safety car, but one did not appear. Stella said it was very unlikely the team could keep Verstappen and Leclerc behind, while the outcome against Hamilton depended more on the hard tyres’ final phase.

The assessment was therefore mixed: Stella was pleased with the strategic execution and the car’s progress, but stressed the need to improve qualifying and continue developing the car to contend regularly for podiums and victories. He acknowledged that fifth and seventh were not results to be satisfied with. McLaren now wants a strong end to the season, with the ambition to fight for podiums and wins and finish the championship at least third. Norris, for his part, said McLaren had slipped from the front to become Formula 1’s fourth-fastest team.