Stella: McLaren are "reassured" by how Mexico "situations" were handled
F1 News
In recent months, most of the attention has been on Red Bull and McLaren, but Ferrari has emerged as a serious contender following back-to-back wins in the United States and Mexico. McLaren team boss Andrea Stella says the Woking-based team saw this coming a long time ago. After joking about the interactions with Max Verstappen costing McLaren some points, Stella did claim to be reassured by how it was handled in Mexico.
After winning the Singapore Grand Prix, McLaren created a 41-point lead in the Constructors' Championship, and a 75-point gap to Ferrari. The gap to Ferrari, who has since moved to second-place, now stands at 29 points with four Grands Prix and two sprint races remaining in the 2024 Formula 1 season.
Why McLaren prepared for a battle with Ferrari
"The complication associated to Ferrari being part of this championship quest, I think now is more material because of the numbers. But for us, personally, at McLaren, we have always internally talked of Ferrari being a potential problem in terms of being a candidate for the championship because it has been very clear that, especially at Monza and afterwards, they had a very fast car," Stella said.
"They improved in their top speed. They improved in terms of their downforce. And at some of the events, they didn't maximise what was at stake for them. Like if we think back to Baku, I think they had the pace to win the race, and then Singapore. So it has become more evident, but for us it's always been the case. We knew that Ferrari was in the quest," he added. Stella then joked about the battles with Verstappen.
Lando Norris and Max Verstappen met on track in both of the Grand Prix. In the United States, Norris was given a five-second penalty for overtaking Verstappen around the outside of the track, which demoted him back to fourth place. In Mexico, Verstappen was penalised with two ten-second penalties.
"Clearly, in the last two events, if we look at Lando's race, we allegedly lost some points because of the interactions with Max. It's racing. We need to take these things into account. The best thing we can do is just be as fast as possible and not even be in the range. This is a joke! I think Red Bull will always be there. It's a very optimistic prospect. But I think we are reassured by the way these kind of close situations have been handled in Mexico. This gives us some reassurance for the future and ultimately it's racing, it's F1 racing. We need to accept this and do our best," Stella added.
"In Formula 1, you don't really lean on these kind of margins. The only thing you can do is just stay focused on yourself, execute at the best of your potential, race weekends, and then really look at the classification after the race in Abu Dhabi," Stella concluded.
Oscar Piastri has scored just 14 points in the last two race weekends, which included a sprint race. This is down on Norris' tally of 36 points in the same period. Piastri has a good chance of scoring good points in Saturday's Brazilian sprint race as he starts from pole position.