Thanks to Lando Norris’ second place and Oscar Piastri’s fifth position during the Canadian Grand Prix, McLaren performed very well in the constructors’ championship, scoring 28 points. The British team thus has 212 units and took advantage of Ferrari’s double retirement to reduce the gap to 40 points between the two teams.
After Norris’ victory in Miami, the Briton almost repeated the feat on the Gilles-Villeneuve circuit, but a bad strategic choice forced him to hand over his place as provisional leader to Max Verstappen. McLaren boss Andrea Stella believes this victory opportunity demonstrates how far the team has come since the disastrous start to the 2023 season.
“This kind of small disappointment for a victory that was possible is actually a testimony to the fact that the team has come a long way and that we are now regular contenders for the podium or sometimes even for victory”explains Stella.
“At the same time, I look at the positives. And there are many. For example, the team has always been competitive, despite variations in the track, conditions and so on, which is never a given .But you don’t earn credit because you have been [compétitif] in the past, you know, you have to be every weekend.”
However, the Italian engineer is aware that despite the good performance of the MCL38 on different types of circuits, the team is far from having acquired the impressive consistency that Red Bull displayed last year on almost all of the Grands. Price.
“The ideal is to make the car a little faster and to be able to play for victory regardless of the conditions or the characteristics of the track”Stella continues. “Because [au Canada], we have to clarify that when we were in dry conditions, Mercedes was faster than us. So we are not yet in a position to achieve victory on pure performance.”
Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
The success in Florida increased McLaren’s motivation tenfold, knowing that the team’s last victory dates back to the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, won by Daniel Ricciardo.
“If trust grows in the team? Well, trust grows, but you don’t do much with trust”says Andrea Stella. “In the end, confidence should help design new pieces. In fact, by being confident, you are more energetic and you work even harder because you enjoy these results and want to see more of them.”
“So it’s more than a motivator. But in the end, we can be competitive and we can be competitive constantly if we do good quality work, [en garantissant] the quality of the parts we design, the robustness of the operations, the consistency of the management.”
“Confidence helps build the energy to support those success factors and honestly I would especially say if we think about the pit crew, drivers, etc. Every athlete that is in a space of trust is more efficient. But like I said, you don’t rely on confidence, you rely on good work and that’s the kind of mindset we need to keep at McLaren.”
For next week’s Spanish Grand Prix, Andrea Stella announced the arrival of several developments, without revealing the details. These will be small developments whose introduction should be spread over the next few races.
“For the upcoming races we will have some improvements, but it will not be one big improvement like the ones we have had over the last 12 month”announces the director. “It’s more about individual components where we found a little more performance and, rather than waiting to deploy everything together once it’s ready, we’re doing it race by race. I won’t say what’s there. will have, but we will see new things in the next races.”
