McLaren team boss Stella acknowledges: 'Beating Verstappen here extra special'
F1 News
- Nicole Mulder
Local hero Max Verstappen has won the Dutch Grand Prix three times in a row, but this year McLaren seem to be in a strong position to return to winning way after 1985 at Circuit Zandvoort. Team principal Andrea Stella cannot help but admit that beating Verstappen at his home Grand Prix would make any victory extra special.
McLaren: 'Beating Verstappen at Zandvoort extra special'
"I do recognize that beating Red Bull and Max here would have a special kind of flavour," Stella told GPblog among others. "Even if numerically you may get the same amount of points, but definitely this would have a special meaning. I would add to the special meaning the fact that Zandvoort has been a bit of a struggle for McLaren in terms of track layout."
He continued: "It's been a place where really we haven't performed very well, so if we can confirm a strong performance tomorrow in the race, then this would be extremely encouraging in terms of the strides forward that we've been able to make. And it's interesting that in the note I said before, actually the points of strength now in a circuit like this is what in the past, when I say the past, no more than 12 months ago, was our main weakness."
The Italian team principal praised his team for this turnaround. "So I think our technical team have been in a condition to turn the characteristics of the car around and make it more competitive in the areas where we were weak. These are also areas that you find very frequently in most of the circuits. So it's where you really want to be competitive rather than being competitive in high speed and straight line like we used to be a couple of seasons ago."
This article was written in collaboration with Kada Sarkozi
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12 September 2024
