Andrea Stella talks about real chance for McLaren to fight for both the F1 titles by its ethos, as he notes #1 chatter works well for headlines.
After its showing in Italian GP at Monza, Stella for the first time admitted that McLaren has the real chance to win both the F1 titles in 2024. They already had hopes of taking the constructors’ away from Red Bull, but now also have their eyes on the drivers’.
In fact, Max Verstappen too noted about losing the title if things don’t improve for Red Bull. While agreeing to a possibility, Stella didn’t wish to give in to what the Dutchman said. But as stated above, he is seeing Lando Norris with a good potential.
He knows that mathematically both Norris and Oscar Piastri have a chance, but the Brit is ahead in points tally and so McLaren will certainly review to check if they can lend larger support to him. Of course, they will not do it going against the ‘papaya rules’.
It will happen only after conversations with Piastri. In fact, Stella is pleased to see them at the front together despite what happened in Monza. He thinks that will mean that McLaren is ahead in the game and with a good chance to score big points.
At the moment, he is not thinking too much about #1 and #2 status, since he thinks it is only for ‘headlines’ and there is no real value towards it. Even when comparing with the Ferrari time, he states whoever has been supported, he has earned that on track.
Verstappen admitting chance of losing –
Stella: “Max is good, even with his tongue. He’s not only good on track. Obviously he knows that the car he is driving at the moment seems to provide him with some challenges. But we need to be better at capitalising the opportunities that Red Bull at the moment seem to offer by not being in the usual possibility of competing for podiums. So I think it’s definitely a worthwhile exercise, like we do all the times, to review in the specifics, not only of the entire race, but even of the first lap, because I hope that we will be in condition to have these situations frequently in the future. It means that the two McLarens start from the front of the grid, but we need to make sure that this is the best for the team and the best for Lando.”
Norris with better chance –
Stella: “Both drivers are mathematically in position, but Lando is obviously in the best position from a numbers point of view and we are fighting Max Verstappen, so I think if we want to give support to one driver, we definitely have to pick the one that is in the best position. And also Lando, he’s been doing very well, like pole position in Zandvoort, pole position here [in Monza]. If anything with Lando, we need to adjust some little racing things which may help him, and may help us capitalise on a pole position like we had in Monza. I think if you look at his first lap, while we review it together, we might see that there were a couple of things that we could have done slightly better.”
Conversations –
Stella: “Already in our conversation, even before the race in Monza, we acknowledge that Lando is in the best position from a Drivers’ Championship point of view. So we have conversations with Oscar, we have conversations with Lando, and we have conversations together, and then we kind of define our rules of engagement. We need to take a look at the first lap, but it has to be done in a way that is competent, is detailed, is specific, takes into account the videos, the drivers’ expectation. Then [we will] see what we can learn from this situation to adjust future situations, save the fact we do want to give it a go with the championship with Lando.”
#1 and #2 –
Stella: “I think number one kind of works well as a headline, but I’m not sure it works very well in the real world in terms of what does it mean? What do you do? Let’s say hypothetically that we conclude that in corner four, Lando just braked too early, and Oscar kind of naturally had the possibility to take the lead, then what does it mean if you are number one? You swap the lap after? It’s just very difficult to implement this definition in the real world. It’s better to keep working as a team, get the opinion of both drivers and then work together to pursue this objective in both championships, because it now looks like the drivers’ championship is definitely a possibility. We were a little cautious even before Monza, but I now we see that McLaren can compete in circuits where last year we were not competitive.
“So I think it’s a very competitive package overall, and this could be a very important weapon for Lando in particular in the quest for the championship. Even with Ferrari, the successful driver was successful because he was gaining the success on track. I think even in the cases in which there was a blatant support from one of the drivers, actually I’m not sure that it wasn’t something that actually backfired. So that’s why I think this thing needs to approach with common sense, needs to approach with racing values and needs to be approached with the support of both drivers. If one of the two drivers doesn’t kind of accept that we have a certain way of going racing, we’re not going to succeed.”
Being close on track –
Stella: “I don’t think the drivers, like they were close together, but this is because they were close together on the grid. So for me, I welcome and I look forward to having many more of these situations. What we need to do is in these situations, the outcome is the one that works the best for the team and the drivers championship. In Monza, without Leclerc, I think Lando and Oscar would have been close enough that we could have played with some other variables, which does not necessarily mean, OK, now we swap positions. I don’t think this is, or at least this wasn’t, part of our agreements. It looks a little brutal to ask a driver that is going to win a race, again on track, that you have to swap positions. But we will review all these things for the next races. And if we come to the conclusion together that swapping is the right thing to do, then we will do it.”
Here’s Christian Horner on McLaren car
Here’s McLaren dissecting strategy
Here’s Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Andrea Stella on Lap 1 scene
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