Could Lando Norris have beaten Kimi Antonelli in Miami? Andrea Stella breaks down the strategy. Andrea Stella on Norris defeat: “We could have won in Miami”.

McLaren leaves Miami satisfied overall: a double podium for the Woking-based team, along with a Sprint Race victory for Lando Norris. The British driver finished Sunday’s Grand Prix in second place. Beating Kimi Antonelli proved impossible, and for many observers McLaren’s strategy played a decisive role. On this point, Andrea Stella addressed the media after the race.

Andrea Stella’s analysis

“We were fighting against a faster car than ours, but perhaps if we had kept Lando in the lead, we could have stayed ahead until the finish line,” Stella said. “When you are leading the race and you have the conditions to maintain it, as Lando did, then you definitely have a chance to win.”

“I believe the timing of the pit stop was the decisive factor, but at the same time we must be careful not to look at it only from a strategic point of view, because there is the pit stop timing, but then we also lost time in the pit lane, which is an execution aspect.”

“It is a combination between the driver’s stop and the in-lap to the pits, during which we lost time, but it is always a team effort and, as a team, we did a very good job to make McLaren competitive again for the win,” he added.

“It was a very difficult situation. Even though Lando was ahead exiting the pits, Antonelli came out on warm tyres, had the ideal racing line, so I don’t think there was anything we could have done. We would have needed to bring Lando in a bit earlier, probably by around seven tenths of a second, and that would have given him the chance to keep the position.”

“Once we understood that the pit stop was not perfect, that we had lost time in the pit lane and that the in-lap was not going to be strong, we knew that with Kimi Antonelli coming on warm tyres it would be very difficult [to keep the lead], so it was a combination of factors that made the situation worse,” Andrea Stella concluded at the end of the Miami Grand Prix.

This latest performance in Miami underscores the small margins of the 2026 championship, where a fraction of a second in the pit lane can be the difference between a podium and the top step. As McLaren continues to refine its operational execution, the team remains a formidable threat to the current leaders, proving that they now have the consistent pace required to challenge for victories on any given Sunday.