The weekend completed by Oscar Piastri over the three days in Sakhir reflected the strength shown by McLaren. The Australian was flawless from Friday, when he established himself as the driver to beat, even for Lando Norris, who instead experienced a challenging weekend, both on track and mentally. The British driver failed to put together a clean lap at the decisive moment in qualifying, and in the race he was not perfect either—both at the start, where he lined up incorrectly and received a five-second penalty, and in certain phases of the race where he made a few errors. After the race, Team Principal Andrea Stella focused on these aspects, without ignoring the level of the McLaren, which in his view is not as dominant as suggested by the competition.
Andrea Stella comments on Oscar Piastri’s weekend: “He handled every situation with the experience of a champion”
“Talking about McLaren dominance is out of place,” the McLaren Team Principal had said on the Friday of the Bahrain GP. A statement that didn’t reflect what the Woking-based team had actually shown in the practice sessions, which suggested dominance for the remainder of the weekend. Stella’s comments after the race on Sky Sport echoed this view, even though McLaren had just secured its third win in four races. “After testing, we knew we were racing on a track where the car would perform well in race trim and in terms of tyre management with high degradation, but we also knew the gaps in qualifying wouldn’t be that big, and that’s how it turned out.” The key difference-maker was Oscar Piastri, flawless from Friday and delivering in the crucial moments of the weekend. “Oscar, from pole position, continued to do an almost perfect job throughout the weekend. He handled every situation with the experience of a champion, despite it being only his fiftieth F1 race,” said the head of the McLaren pit wall.
On Norris’s difficulties: “Full support for Lando, he never pointed fingers at the team”
Lando Norris, on the other hand, was not flawless. Rewinding back to Friday, he already appeared unsettled after FP2, when he described feelings quite different from those of his teammate. After qualifying sixth, the Brit started out of position on the grid, which earned him a five-second penalty. “That was one of the inaccuracies that occurred this weekend and probably cost us second place,” Andrea Stella commented. After qualifying, Lando Norris had taken full responsibility for not extracting the maximum from the MCL39, relegating himself to a sixth-place start. Even after the GP, his words followed the same pattern, acknowledging that he made several mistakes in the race. “From a stylistic point of view, Lando is a very transparent person. In my experience, even multiple world champions aren’t immune to frustration when they want to do something with the car and can’t. Separating style from substance, there are areas we need to work on with him—both in terms of his expectations in the car, and on the team’s side as well. I’d like to stress that at no point did he point fingers at the team.”
“If we are where we are now, it’s because Lando has led this growth project,” added McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella. “Let’s not forget that without the weekend he had last year in Abu Dhabi, we wouldn’t be world champions. So we need to put things into proper perspective.” Andrea Stella then focused on the current level of a car that, up until qualifying, had seemed to be on another planet compared to the competition. Although Oscar Piastri stole the spotlight in qualifying and then led the race from start to finish, and McLaren clearly felt at ease with the conditions in Sakhir, Andrea Stella continued to reject any suggestion of a dominant season. “Pole position was by two tenths, and the others are bringing upgrades,” he continued, outlining the situation from the point of view of the current benchmark on the grid. “I know Red Bull will bring updates, and certainly Mercedes too. The gap is what it is, and it doesn’t give us any sense of security. It’s a margin that requires us to keep our feet on the ground and fight at every event, trying to do the best possible job,” the former Ferrari race engineer concluded.
Leave a Reply